Sales & Business Development Manager

About the company

Our client is a maritime security and defence technology company founded in 2025, with operations in Denmark and Ukraine and a pre-seed round recently secured. Their AI platform fuses satellite, AIS, sensor and open-source intelligence into a single operating picture and tasks autonomous systems to respond, helping navies, coast guards, port authorities and energy operators predict and prevent threats to maritime assets.

They are a team of 5, and this is their first sales hire. The founders have already built a pipeline of qualified prospects; your job is to turn those conversations into pilots, and pilots into long-term contracts, across the Baltics and the North Sea rim between the UK and Denmark.

What you will own

• Take warm leads introduced to you by the founders, work out what each prospect needs right now, and identify the urgent problems the company can solve.
• Move prospects to a fixed-price pilot project, then convert the pilot into a long-term agreement - a subscription for consulting and integration, plus the hardware the company supplies.
• Build pipeline across 4 segments: offshore wind, offshore oil and gas, ports and airports, and coast guard and border police.
• Run face-to-face meetings, present at industry events, and run live demos that show what the product does and what it is worth.
• Grow from working the founders' leads into generating new business yourself.
• Keep the pipeline accurate in HubSpot and report status to the founders.

What to expect

You will sell into regulated, risk-averse organisations that buy slowly, so the work is as much about keeping long procurement processes moving as it is about closing. Pilots are how the company gains traction, builds momentum and collects customer feedback.

The engagement starts as a 3-month consulting contract with goals and KPIs agreed up front. You will work with a commercial lead who introduces you to prospects and acts as your line manager and mentor, and with the company's product designer. The role can grow into a sales leadership position or stay hands-on, depending on you.

Target markets are the Baltics and the North Sea region between the UK and Denmark. Face-to-face meetings there are part of the job, so expect regular travel, within Europe only.

You are a fit if you

• Come from offshore wind, offshore oil and gas, energy operations, port or airport authority, naval, coast guard or border police, or the defence sector, and know how buyers in those organisations decide.
• Have sold B2B or B2G solutions into those customers and can point to deals you moved yourself.
• Are a hands-on sales doer: you source, qualify, run the meeting and write the proposal yourself.
• Are self-sufficient and proactive, with a scrappy start-up mindset: you solve problems and keep things moving without waiting to be unblocked.
• Present confidently, at events, in first meetings and in live demos.
• Are based in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland.
• Speak fluent English.

Nice to have

• Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish or German language.
• Experience selling software, SaaS or situational-awareness solutions into critical infrastructure or defence.
• Experience with public tenders and framework bids, including EU public procurement or defence acquisition.
• An existing network in Nordic, Baltic or Northern European maritime and defence ecosystems.
• Working knowledge of the regulatory frame around maritime and defence - UNCLOS, SOLAS and the ISPS Code, EU defence and security procurement, EU dual-use export control, NIS2 and the Critical Entities Resilience Directive.

This probably is not a fit if you

• Work best inside an established process with marketing-generated leads and a defined territory.
• Need deals that close in one or two quarters to stay motivated.
• Want a team to manage rather than a pipeline to carry yourself.

What our client offers

• A leading commercial role in a fast-moving defence tech company, working directly with the founders.
• Real influence over go-to-market strategy, pricing and future hires, and a path into sales leadership.
• Work that directly supports European maritime security.
• A contractor engagement with a fixed monthly fee of €2,500-3,500 depending on your location, plus commission on pilots and long-term contracts. A ramp-up bonus and equity participation may form part of the package.
• A remote set-up with regular travel within Europe.

Hiring process

• Intro call with a recruiter.
• 3 interviews: with the CEO, with your future line manager, and with the product designer.

The process takes 2-3 weeks from the first interview to a signed contract.

Before you apply

In your cover letter, tell us briefly about one deal you closed in offshore energy, ports, maritime or a related regulated sector - what you sold, to whom, and how long it took.