Sales Director

Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.

Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!

If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.

Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!

As Sales Director, you will serve as the strategic and operational leader for Lightmatter’s relationships with major hyperscale and enterprise customers. Acting as the “CEO” of your accounts, you will own all aspects of the customer relationship—from design wins and business development to executive alignment and contract negotiation.

This highly visible role requires a unique combination of strategic acumen, technical fluency, and executive relationship management. You’ll work closely with cross-functional teams across engineering, product, operations, and marketing to align Lightmatter’s photonic computing technologies with the world’s most advanced infrastructure providers.

Responsibilities

Strategic Account Leadership

• Own and drive the full lifecycle of customer engagement—from opportunity identification through deployment and revenue realization.
• Define and lead account strategies that deliver growth, market influence, and long-term partnership value.
• Build and maintain trusted executive relationships across procurement, engineering, architecture, and C-suite levels.
• Act as the “voice of the customer” within Lightmatter, ensuring alignment of product priorities and strategic initiatives.
• Lead cross-functional internal account teams and foster collaboration across the sales organization.

Technology & Product Alignment

• Drive technical sales engagements that uncover customer challenges and align Lightmatter’s photonic computing platforms to address them.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to influence roadmap priorities and secure customer-driven design wins.
• Demonstrate a deep understanding of AI datacenter infrastructure, workload trends, and TCO analysis.
• Use competitive insights to position Lightmatter’s products as differentiated enablers of performance, efficiency, and scalability.

Go-To-Market & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Marketing, Product, and Operations to develop joint go-to-market plans and customer engagement programs.
• Work with ecosystem partners—including hyperscalers, ISVs, and system integrators—to expand adoption of Lightmatter technologies.
• Contribute to regional and global partner strategies, ensuring unified customer experience and execution excellence.
• Represent Lightmatter at major industry events, conferences, and customer innovation forums.

Revenue Growth & Operational Execution

• Deliver quarterly and annual revenue targets with precision and discipline.
• Negotiate and close complex, multi-year agreements in collaboration with Legal, Finance, and Executive leadership.
• Provide data-driven insight into pipeline health, deployment timing, and revenue ramp.
• Ensure seamless execution of account strategies—balancing long-term partnership development with near-term delivery milestones.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Computer Science (MBA preferred).
• 10+ years of experience in account management, strategic sales, or business development within semiconductor, hyperscale, or cloud infrastructure environments.
• Proven success closing large-scale ($100M+) technology partnerships and managing complex, matrixed customer engagements.
• Deep technical understanding of AI workloads, datacenter architectures, silicon ecosystems, and procurement cycles.
• Demonstrated success influencing customer roadmaps and securing design wins.
• Strong communication, negotiation, and presentation skills with the ability to operate effectively across C-suite and engineering stakeholders.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, analytical rigor, and passion for innovation in AI and computing.
• Willingness to travel

Preferred Experience

• Experience collaborating with internal product and engineering teams to influence roadmap and close design wins.
• Familiarity with conceptual selling methodologies
• Prior exposure to emerging compute technologies such as optical interconnects, accelerators, and photonic architectures.

We offer competitive compensation. On target earnings range is listed below. The final compensation will be determined based on location, experience, educational background, and market data.

Sales Compensation$280,000—$350,000 USD

Benefits

• Comprehensive Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Savings Matching Program
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Generous Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Paid Family Leave
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Training & Development
• Commuter Benefits
• Flexible, hybrid workplace model
• Equity grants (applicable to full-time employees)

Benefits eligibility may vary depending on your employment status and location. Lightmatter recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law.

Export Control

Candidates should have capacity to comply with the federally mandated requirements of U.S. export control laws.