Sales Engineer

Firsthand has built the first AI-powered Brand Agent platform, transforming the way marketers and publishers engage consumers through their own AI agents, anywhere online.

While most AI applications in marketing and advertising focus on back-office automation, the Firsthand Brand Agent Platform™ powers front-line consumer engagement. Operating across both owned properties and paid media, Firsthand's Brand Agents make a company’s expertise accessible in real time, adapting to consumers’ interests and guiding them towards the information they need to take action. Central to the platform is Lakebed™, the company’s AI-first data and knowledge rights management system that ensures brands retain full ownership and control of their expertise.

Firsthand is led by Jon Heller, Michael Rubenstein, and Wei Wei, whose previous ventures helped build the foundations of modern digital advertising. Backed by Radical Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Aperiam Ventures, and Crossbeam Venture Partners, Firsthand is shaping the future of AI-driven consumer engagement.

Firsthand is headquartered in NYC, with team members working together in-office three days a week.

• Lead joint discovery with Account Executive partners, helping shape deal strategy and uncover the customer’s true problems and opportunities.

• Translate discovery into custom demo narratives, technical consultation, and value-oriented storytelling.

• Build lightweight mockups or internal demo tools to bring Brand Agent concepts to life.

• Apply Challenger-style selling: reframe customer assumptions, connect value to pain, and guide prospects toward solution clarity.

• Communicate complex AI workflows in simple, executive-friendly language.

• Own technical objection handling across AI safety, compliance, data governance, and integration feasibility.

• Partner closely with Sales from first meeting through close, ensuring solution alignment at every stage.

• Stay immersed in the AI ecosystem: new models, emerging techniques, competitive trends, and use cases across brand and publisher landscapes.

• Be the “AI expert in the room,” inspiring customer confidence and expanding their understanding of where AI can reshape workflows.

• Experiment with new AI tools and approaches; contribute frameworks and learnings to elevate team capabilities.

• Champion safe, high-integrity AI usage aligned with Lakebed™ principles.

• Provide technical expertise and guidance to publisher clients during pre-sales processes.

• Work with internal teams to scope and design technical implementations for Publishers, Agencies and Brands

• Act as a connective tissue between customers and Product.

• Capture and synthesize customer needs, gaps, and patterns from calls, demos, and proofs of concept.

• Help Product prioritize enhancements and validate new features ahead of launch.

• Work with Marketing on positioning, messaging, and competitive narratives.

• Share market feedback with Product stakeholders using a structured, clear and impactful approach.

• Partner with Solutions on early deployments to ensure SE learnings translate into long-term value.

• Strong understanding of digital advertising across display, programmatic, measurement, targeting, and publisher monetization.

• Familiarity with the challenges marketers and publishers face: signal loss, measurement friction, content saturation, and shifting expectations for first-party value.

• Daily user of modern AI tools; knowledgeable about LLMs, safety concerns, hallucination risks, and enterprise data rights.

• Familiarity with concepts like embeddings, vector search, and RAG.

• Demonstrated success in a pre-sales or hybrid technical role.

• Skilled at running discovery (with AEs), translating needs into solutions, and building credibility with senior stakeholders.

• Strong presenter with the ability to craft crisp, compelling demos and narratives.

• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and navigating unfinished products with confidence and integrity.

• Deeply curious, self-directed, and energized by learning new technologies.

• Low-ego collaborator who thrives in a small, fast-moving team.

• Clear communicator who can articulate limitations without losing momentum.

• Empathetic and customer-centered.

• Familiarity with emerging AI ecosystem tools (e.g., MCP, agent-to-agent workflows, LangChain).

• Comfort inspecting basic front-end behavior, network calls, or API responses to support prototyping.

• Able to create lightweight prototypes to support demos and concepts.

• Comfortable with AI-assisted coding workflows.

• A rare opportunity to help introduce and guide deep and fundamental change to a fast-moving and innovative industry.

• The opportunity to play an integral role in shaping our company and culture.

• You'll get the learning and development from working with the world's best advertising technology executives, PMs, and engineers on leading-edge technologies and capabilities.

• The opportunity to shape Firsthand and the future of the industry while growing your career and expertise with the company.

• An open, inclusive and professional culture and work environment.

If you are ready to embark on an exhilarating journey at the forefront of AI, seize this incredible opportunity and apply here. We eagerly anticipate hearing from you!

Note: Compensation and equity will be market-competitive for well-capitalized, early stage startups and will be discussed during the interview process.