Founding Go-to-Market, Public Sector

About EdgeTrace

EdgeTrace is a seed-stage company (Y Combinator W24) building Vantage VMS, an AI video-search platform that turns existing camera networks into a searchable system for law enforcement. A detective can describe what they are looking for in plain language (“silver sedan, damaged front bumper, heading east on Palm Ave”) and go from a vague witness description to a precise identification in under 30 seconds. Led by engineers from xAI and DARPA, we are building AI for the chaos of real-world public safety operations.

We sell to municipal police departments and recently closed our first paid customer. The next 12 months are about turning that first contract into a repeatable motion, and the person we hire into this role is the operator who makes that happen.

The role

You will be EdgeTrace’s first dedicated GTM hire and the person who owns our public-sector go-to-market end to end. This is a player-coach role: you carry your own pipeline, run pilots from first call through deployment, and define the playbook we will eventually hire against. You will work directly with the CEO, and your job over the next 12 months is to turn one paid customer into a repeatable book of business.

What you will own

• Outbound and pipeline. Build and run the prospecting engine across municipal police departments: list-building, sequencing, calling, and sourcing your own meetings.
• Full-cycle deals. Own each opportunity from first conversation through proposal, procurement, and signed contract. You carry a number.
• Pilots. Run pilots end to end: scope, deploy, train, document, convert. The conversion playbook is yours to write.
• GTM strategy and execution. Refine the ICP, sharpen positioning, and build the sales motion: decks, battle cards, objection-handling, the lightweight playbook a second GTM hire could pick up on day one.
• Customer voice. Bring field feedback back to engineering so roadmap reflects real buyer pain, not speculation.
• Lightweight marketing. At this stage GTM is one person’s job, which means conference presence, case studies, content, and demand work also live with you for now.
• First hires under you. As we scale revenue, you will be the person identifying, hiring, and ramping the second and third GTM seats.

What success looks like (first 12 months)

• A documented sales playbook another GTM hire could ramp on inside two weeks.
• Multiple paid pilots in market and a documented pilot-to-paid conversion path.
• A measurable ARR contribution against goals set with the CEO in your first 30 days.
• A clean, persona-mapped target account database with weekly outbound performance reporting.
• Two or more reference customers willing to take prospect calls.

What we are looking for

• 4-7+ years in B2G, SLED, or federal sales / GTM at a SaaS or technology company. Public-sector experience is the requirement, not a bonus.
• Demonstrated full-cycle ownership of deals, including sourcing, qualifying, negotiating, and closing. You have personally closed business, not just supported it.
• Fluency with public-sector procurement: RFPs, sole-source justifications, grant funding cycles, cooperative purchasing vehicles, and how local-government budgets actually move.
• Comfort in a player-coach seat. You will do the prospecting yourself for the first months before you hire anyone, and you are good with that.
• Strong written and verbal communication. Your audience is Chiefs, City Managers, and IT Directors, and your writing has to land with all three.
• A builder mindset suited to a company finding its first repeatable motion. You are calibrated to seed-stage realities: small team, no playbook handed to you, equity-heavy compensation.

Nice to have

• Direct law enforcement, public safety, or municipal government experience.
• Existing network of municipal police department or city government relationships.
• Experience selling into small and mid-sized cities specifically (vs. large metros or federal).
• Exposure to computer vision, video, surveillance, or physical-security industries.
• Familiarity with Apollo, HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Salesloft, or Clay.

Compensation

• Base salary: $130,000 to $150,000, calibrated to experience.
• Equity: 0.50% to 1.00% (4-year vest, 1-year cliff, 50% change-of-control acceleration).
• Variable: revenue share on closed-won, paid quarterly. Structure finalized at offer.
• Full healthcare, dental, and vision.
• Commuter benefits and company-issued laptop.
• Compensation revisit at Series A.

Logistics

• Onsite, San Mateo, CA, five days a week.
• Travel for customer visits, pilots, and law-enforcement conferences as needed.
• Occasional evening and weekend availability around active deals and pilot launches.

How to apply

Email [email protected] with subject line “Founding GTM, [Your Name]” and include:

• Your resume.
• A short note (one paragraph) on a public-sector deal you personally closed or led, including the agency type, deal size, cycle length, and what specifically made it close.
• A 100-word (max) cold email you would send to a Chief of Police in a mid-sized U.S. city whose department already operates body cameras but has no integrated video search. Name the specific city you chose.
• A bulleted 30-60-90 plan: what you would do in your first three months at EdgeTrace.

EdgeTrace is an equal opportunity employer. We hire based on demonstrated ability to do the work described above.