Technical Sales Specialist

*Technical Sales Specialist *
Business Development & Forward Deployment

Location: Charlotte, North Carolina area
Work Arrangement: Remote/home-based with regular customer-site travel
Travel: Regional and occasional national travel

*About Loopr AI *

Loopr AI is an enterprise SaaS company helping manufacturers improve quality, throughput, and yield using AI-powered vision inspection and analytics. We help manufacturers apply artificial intelligence and computer vision to solve real production challenges, including defect detection, assembly verification, process monitoring, and quality improvement. **

Our team works at the intersection of AI, vision systems, industrial technology, and manufacturing operations. We are looking for a commercially driven technical professional who can create new customer opportunities, communicate Loopr AI’s technical value, and help move projects from initial interest through a successful first deployment.

*Role Overview *

The Technical Sales Specialist will combine the responsibilities of a Business Development Representative, Technical Sales Engineer, and Forward Deployed Engineer.

This person will prospect into manufacturing companies, develop relationships with engineering and operations stakeholders, deliver technical presentations and product demonstrations, and qualify both the business opportunity and the customer’s technical requirements. Once an opportunity advances, the Technical Sales Specialist will help scope the proposed solution, coordinate with camera and hardware integration partners, and support the customer’s initial technical deployment.

The role will also involve visiting manufacturing facilities to understand production processes, evaluate inspection requirements, identify defects and edge cases, and capture representative images and video. The Technical Sales Specialist will help organize and label this data so that Loopr AI’s technical team can rapidly assess feasibility and configure an effective solution.

The ideal candidate combines commercial initiative with technical curiosity and practical field execution. This person should be comfortable initiating a cold conversation with a manufacturing executive, conducting a technical discovery session with engineers, presenting a live software demonstration, and working on a factory floor to collect the data required for an initial deployment.

Key Responsibilities

*Business Development and Prospecting *

• Prospect into mid-market and enterprise manufacturing companies within designated industries, accounts, and geographic territories.
• Research manufacturers, production facilities, processes, quality challenges, and relevant engineering and operations contacts.
• Build and maintain accurate target-account and contact lists.
• Conduct outbound outreach through phone, email, LinkedIn, industry events, partner introductions, and other channels.
• Engage manufacturing stakeholders such as quality leaders, manufacturing engineers, process engineers, automation engineers, plant managers, operations leaders, and senior executives.
• Develop outreach messaging tailored to specific manufacturing processes, inspection challenges, defects, quality risks, and business outcomes.
• Qualify opportunities by understanding the customer’s current inspection process, production environment, quality objectives, operational pain points, and decision-making process.
• Generate qualified discovery meetings, technical demonstrations, site assessments, and pilot opportunities.
• Maintain accurate records of contacts, activities, technical requirements, opportunities, and next steps in the company’s CRM.
• Meet agreed-upon objectives for outbound activity, qualified meetings, pilot opportunities, and sales pipeline creation.

*Technical Discovery and Solution Presentation *

• Conduct business and technical discovery sessions with prospective customers.
• Understand the customer’s manufacturing process, inspection points, defect types, quality standards, existing equipment, production constraints, and desired outcomes.
• Present Loopr AI’s technical story in a clear and compelling manner to both executive and technical audiences.
• Deliver software demonstrations tailored to the customer’s use case, production environment, and quality requirements.
• Explain how computer vision and AI can support applications such as defect detection, assembly verification, anomaly detection, process monitoring, and quality analytics.
• Translate technical capabilities into measurable manufacturing outcomes such as reduced scrap, rework, inspection effort, customer escapes, and downtime.
• Assess whether the customer’s proposed use case is technically appropriate for Loopr AI.
• Identify technical risks, unknowns, data limitations, hardware dependencies, and integration requirements early in the sales process.
• Respond to initial technical questions and coordinate with Loopr AI’s product and engineering teams when deeper expertise is required.
• Support the development of technical proposals, pilot plans, statements of work, solution diagrams, and customer-facing implementation materials.
• Communicate customer requirements and field observations clearly to Loopr AI’s product, AI, and engineering teams.

*Solution Scoping and Hardware Coordination *

• Define the initial technical scope for proofs of concept, pilots, and early production deployments.
• Document use cases, inspection objectives, defect definitions, acceptance criteria, production conditions, and required outputs.
• Evaluate relevant environmental and operational conditions, including part presentation, cycle time, line speed, lighting, camera position, field of view, working distance, physical access, and connectivity.
• Help determine preliminary requirements for cameras, lenses, lighting, mounting, triggering, industrial computers, networking, enclosures, and related equipment.
• Coordinate with camera vendors, machine-vision specialists, automation companies, and hardware integration partners to develop complete customer solutions.
• Participate in joint customer discussions with hardware and integration partners.
• Ensure proposed hardware and software components align with the intended inspection use case and deployment environment.
• Help define the responsibilities of Loopr AI, the customer, and third-party integration partners during pilot and production deployment.
• Identify dependencies involving plant IT, operational technology, cybersecurity, networking, programmable logic controllers, manufacturing systems, and customer-provided hardware.
• Maintain clear technical documentation and communicate changes in scope, assumptions, constraints, or customer requirements.
• Support handoff from sales and solution scoping to engineering, implementation, and customer success teams.

Site Assessments and Data Collection

• Travel to customer manufacturing facilities to evaluate prospective use cases and support initial deployments.
• Observe the production process and document where and how the proposed inspection will occur.
• Work with customer quality and engineering teams to understand acceptable parts, known defects, defect severity, process variation, and relevant edge cases.
• Capture representative images and video of good parts, defective parts, production conditions, and process variation.
• Follow an organized data-collection plan to capture sufficient examples across relevant products, defect types, production shifts, and environmental conditions.
• Properly organize, name, store, and document collected images and video.
• Label or annotate defects and other relevant features using Loopr AI’s designated tools and labeling standards.
• Validate labels and defect classifications with the customer’s subject-matter experts.
• Document relevant contextual information, including product type, defect category, severity, production condition, inspection location, and known data limitations.
• Maintain appropriate handling and security of customer images, video, production information, and confidential data.
• Provide clear field reports describing the use case, available data, site conditions, technical findings, open questions, and recommended next steps.

*Initial Deployment and Forward-Deployed Support *

• Support the configuration and initial deployment of Loopr AI solutions at customer sites.
• Work alongside Loopr AI’s engineering team, the customer’s technical team, and third-party integration partners.
• Assist with connecting cameras and related data sources to the Loopr AI platform.
• Help configure customer use cases, defect categories, inspection workflows, dashboards, and other deployment parameters.
• Coordinate testing using representative production images and video.
• Help evaluate initial results, identify false positives and false negatives, and collect additional examples needed to improve performance.
• Document customer feedback, technical issues, environmental changes, and previously unidentified edge cases.
• Troubleshoot initial deployment issues and coordinate escalation to Loopr AI’s engineering or product teams when necessary.
• Train customer stakeholders on the initial workflow and appropriate use of the deployed solution.
• Support the transition from pilot or initial deployment into a repeatable production implementation.
• Capture lessons learned that can improve future demonstrations, pilots, hardware designs, deployment processes, and product capabilities.

*Cross-Functional Responsibilities *

• Serve as a bridge among customers, sales, product, AI, engineering, customer success, and integration partners.
• Translate customer business problems into clear technical requirements.
• Communicate technical constraints and implementation considerations in customer-friendly language.
• Share recurring customer requirements, objections, use cases, and competitive information with internal teams.
• Help create repeatable demonstration environments, discovery templates, site-assessment checklists, data-collection procedures, and deployment playbooks.
• Support regional manufacturing events, trade shows, demonstrations, workshops, and partner activities.
• Develop long-term relationships with regional manufacturers, automation companies, machine-vision providers, camera vendors, and systems integrators.
• Take ownership of opportunities and customer activities rather than waiting for work to be assigned.

*Required Qualifications *

• Three or more years of relevant experience in technical sales, business development, sales engineering, solutions engineering, applications engineering, field engineering, industrial automation, machine vision, manufacturing technology, or a related customer-facing technical role.
• Experience working with manufacturing companies or within a factory, production, quality, automation, or industrial engineering environment.
• Ability and willingness to conduct outbound prospecting and initiate conversations with prospective customers.
• Strong presentation and demonstration skills with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both business executives and technical stakeholders.
• Strong technical discovery and requirements-gathering skills.
• Practical understanding of manufacturing processes, production constraints, quality inspection, and defect classification.
• Ability to observe a production process and translate the customer’s objectives into structured business and technical requirements.
• Comfort working with cameras, industrial equipment, software systems, data, and physical production environments.
• Ability to capture, organize, and label images and video accurately.
• Strong written communication and documentation skills.
• Ability to manage multiple prospects, pilots, site activities, and follow-up commitments simultaneously.
• Self-starter who thrives in an early-stage environment with changing priorities and limited day-to-day supervision.
• Strong judgment, curiosity, persistence, and attention to detail.
• Proficiency with CRM systems, presentation software, spreadsheets, collaborative documents, and project-management tools.
• Based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area and able to work from a home office when not visiting customers.
• Ability and willingness to travel to manufacturing facilities, including occasional overnight travel.
• Ability to work safely and professionally in active industrial and manufacturing environments.
• The communication, resilience, technical curiosity, self-direction, CRM discipline, and manufacturing orientation reflect the qualification themes in Loopr AI’s existing SDR and marketing job descriptions.
  

*Preferred Qualifications *

• Experience with computer vision, machine vision, industrial cameras, image acquisition, or AI-based inspection.
• Familiarity with cameras, lenses, lighting, mounting, triggering, and image-quality considerations.
• Experience working with hardware integrators, machine builders, systems integrators, or industrial automation partners.
• Familiarity with programmable logic controllers, industrial networks, robots, manufacturing execution systems, quality management systems, or supervisory control systems.
• Experience collecting and labeling image or video datasets.
• Experience supporting proofs of concept, pilots, commissioning, or initial customer deployments.
• Experience selling or implementing enterprise SaaS, AI, automation, quality, or industrial software.
• Experience developing statements of work, technical requirements, acceptance criteria, or solution proposals.
• Existing relationships within the manufacturing, industrial automation, or machine-vision community in the Carolinas or broader Southeast.
• Engineering, computer science, manufacturing, automation, or another relevant technical degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience working in an early-stage company and helping establish its sales and deployment processes.

*What Success Looks Like *

During the first six months, the successful candidate will:

• Develop a targeted pipeline of manufacturing accounts and contacts in the assigned region and industries.
• Consistently generate qualified discovery meetings, technical demonstrations, site assessments, and pilot opportunities.
• Become proficient in presenting and demonstrating Loopr AI’s platform to executive and technical audiences.
• Independently conduct initial discovery and document customer business and technical requirements.
• Accurately distinguish between promising use cases and opportunities that require further technical validation.
• Build effective working relationships with camera, machine-vision, automation, and hardware integration partners.
• Conduct organized site assessments and collect high-quality, representative, properly labeled image and video data.
• Help move qualified opportunities from initial engagement through technical validation and initial deployment.
• Provide complete and actionable information to Loopr AI’s sales, product, AI, and engineering teams.
• Help create a repeatable regional model for prospecting, technical selling, solution scoping, site data collection, and pilot deployment.
• This success framework extends Loopr AI’s existing focus on qualified meetings, repeatable outbound execution, technical fluency, and the ability to uncover and frame manufacturing quality problems.
  

*Why Join Loopr AI *

This is not a conventional business-development or sales-engineering position. The Technical Sales Specialist will participate directly in the entire early customer lifecycle, from identifying an opportunity to seeing the initial solution operate in a real manufacturing environment.

The role provides meaningful ownership, direct customer exposure, and the opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI while solving practical manufacturing problems. You will help shape not only individual customer deployments, but also Loopr AI’s broader approach to technical selling, field validation, hardware partnerships, and forward deployment.

Loopr AI offers a fast-moving environment where team members are expected to learn quickly, act with ownership, work across functional boundaries, and deliver measurable customer and business outcomes. This aligns with the ownership, customer access, learning, and execution themes used in the company’s existing job descriptions.

*Equal Opportunity *

Loopr AI is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Veterans are encouraged to apply.