AI & Tech Sales Development Representative

About Ayora:

Ayora is an AI & Tech recruitment agency specialising in sourcing and placing top talent in artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and broader tech sectors. We work with growth-stage startups, scaleups, and enterprise clients to help them find the right technical talent, and support professionals to find roles that align with both skills and values.

Role Overview:

As an AI & Tech Sales Development Representative, you will be the front line of growth at Ayora. Your mission is to identify, engage, and qualify prospective clients (startups, scaleups, tech firms) who need recruitment support for AI, machine learning, data, and engineering roles. You will generate outbound interest, nurture leads, and set appointment handovers to our senior account executives or leadership team.

You will combine technical curiosity, sales discipline, and industry insight to have informed conversations with prospects about their hiring needs, challenges, and budgets.
This is a high-impact role: your pipeline generation will directly influence our growth and revenue.

Key Responsibilities:

• Conduct outbound prospecting (cold calling, cold emailing, LinkedIn outreach) into target segments (AI startups, tech scaleups, R&D teams)
• Research and map target organisations (who hires AI, ML, data, etc) and key decision makers (CTO, Head of Engineering, Talent Leads, HR)
• Qualify inbound and outbound leads based on defined criteria (budget, timeline, hiring volume, technical domain)
• Manage and nurture leads through early-stage conversations, advancing them toward discovery calls or sales appointments
• Collaborate with marketing to refine messaging, campaigns, and outreach sequences
• Maintain accurate records in the CRM, logging all outreach, responses, and next steps
• Work with the sales or leadership team to ensure smooth handover of qualified opportunities
• Continuously learn about AI, machine learning, data, and emerging tech trends to speak credibly with prospects
• Analyse outreach performance, conversion metrics, and iterate to improve results
• Contribute feedback to product/service refinement, competitive positioning, and sales materials

Required Skills & Experience:

• 3+ years of sales development, business development, or lead generation experience (ideally in tech, SaaS, recruitment, or consulting)
• Demonstrated ability to execute outbound outreach: cold calling, cold emailing, LinkedIn, multichannel sequences
• Strong research skills: ability to identify target accounts, roles, and decision makers
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written), comfortable in technical conversations and asking probing questions
• Self-motivated, persistent, resilient (able to handle rejection and iterate)
• Curious about AI, machine learning, data science, and technical recruiting
• Familiarity or willingness to learn CRM tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, etc)
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, evolving agency environment

What we are looking for:

• Experience selling to technology, AI, data, or engineering buyers
• Exposure to recruitment, talent acquisition, consulting, or staffing business models
• Technical literacy in AI/ML concepts (e.g. supervised learning, neural networks, data pipelines)
• Experience with sales automation, outreach tools (e.g. Outreach, Salesloft, )
• Comfortable doing A/B testing, analytics, and iterative improvement in outreach
• Energy, drive, and resilience to build growth from scratch
• Intellectual curiosity in AI and technology domains
• Authentic communication and rapport building
• Ownership mindset — treat this as your domain, not just a task
• Willingness to iterate, learn from mistakes, and improve

What we offer:

• Competitive base salary + performance commission / bonus structure
• Opportunity to take ownership of a high-visibility pipeline role
• Exposure to the AI / tech recruiting market and fast growth clients
• Learning culture — mentorship, training, access to tech domain experts
• Flexible working arrangements (remote / hybrid / office)
• Career path into account executive, sales leadership, or technical recruiting roles