Logo for Focal

Sales Lead - SoCal / LA

Role overview

Qualifications

  • 4–8 years of B2B sales experience
  • Proven experience in account-based selling
  • Deep familiarity with the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego market
  • Comfort with ambiguity

Responsibilities

  • Own the Southern California market
  • Drive account-based strategy
  • Represent Focal on the ground
  • Lay the foundation for a team

Key facts

Other skills

  • Relationship Building
  • Dealing With Ambiguity
  • Enthusiasm

About the company

Focal logo

Focal

Focal designs radiant heaters that heat people, not spaces. Our autonomous system delivers targeted heat exactly where it’s needed—keeping guests comfortable while cutting energy waste. Designed for hospitality, Focal heaters blend seamlessly into any space. Guests adjust their warmth with a touch, while owners save energy and streamline operations with automated heating and a single dashboard. No more hauling bulky heaters or wasting heat on empty tables—just effortless comfort that keeps outdoor seats full and revenue flowing, year-round. At Focal, we’re creating a world where comfort is personal, effortless, and sustainable.

Company details

Company size1 - 10

Your match analysis

See how your profile stacks up against this role.

We compared the job requirements to your profile to show where you're strong and where you fall short.

Job description

The Opportunity

Focal is the world's first autonomous personal comfort platform: an AI-enabled robotic heating system that delivers individualized warmth to each guest in real time. Rather than conditioning entire spaces, we heat people directly, the way modern lighting illuminates with intention. The result: up to 80% in energy savings, a 25% increase in patio seating capacity, two hours of labor savings per shift, and a 25% jump in five-star reviews for our restaurant partners.

In less than a year since our first commercial installation, we've logged over 30,000 hours of live operation across Michelin-star groups, regional chains, and independent operators throughout the Bay Area, including The Anchovy Bar, Wayfare Tavern, and Pacific Catch. Fast Company named us one of the World's Most Innovative Companies of 2026, alongside Waymo, Boston Dynamics, and Toast.

We're expanding to Southern California, and we're looking for the person who will own it.

This is not a territory you inherit. It's one you build. As Focal's first hire in Los Angeles area, you'll be responsible for landing the accounts that define our brand in the market, building a pipeline from scratch, and eventually hiring and developing the team beneath you. If you've been waiting for the kind of role where what you build is genuinely yours — this is it.

What You'll Do

Own the Southern California market.

You'll build our pipeline from scratch: identifying the right restaurant groups, hospitality operators, and multi-unit chains, and running account-based campaigns to open and close them. You'll know who the right targets are before anyone tells you, build relationships at every level of an organization, and close deals that compound over time.

Drive account-based strategy.

LA is a relationship market with one of the most vibrant outdoor dining scenes in the country. You'll develop a target account list, research key stakeholders, build multi-threaded relationships within priority accounts, and execute a disciplined approach to winning new business, not just working the warmest leads.

Represent Focal on the ground.

You'll be Focal's face in Southern California, attending industry events, building a local network in hospitality and food & beverage, and making sure the right operators know who we are and what we've built.

Lay the foundation for a team.

As the market grows, you'll play an increasingly important role in shaping how Focal scales, contributing to hiring decisions, onboarding future reps, and helping define the playbook for how we sell in new markets. You're not just closing deals; you're building something.

What We're Looking For

  • 4–8 years of B2B sales experience, with a track record of owning complex, multi-stakeholder deals from prospecting to close

  • Proven experience in account-based selling: you know how to build a target list, map an org, and run a disciplined outreach motion

  • Deep familiarity with the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego market; existing relationships in hospitality, food & beverage, or real estate are a strong plus

  • Comfort with ambiguity: you've built pipeline in a new territory or for a new product before, and you didn't wait for leads to come to you

  • Early management instincts: you care about developing others and want to build something, not just hit a number

  • Genuine enthusiasm for what Focal is building: you understand why the product matters and can convey that authentically to operators

Why Focal

  • Named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies of 2026 alongside Waymo, Boston Dynamics, and Toast

  • Proven, measurable results: customers capture up to 80% energy savings, 25% more seating capacity, and a 25% jump in five-star reviews

  • Backed by Collaborative Fund, Third Sphere, Brainstorm Ventures, and leading angels across hospitality and energy

  • A founding team with deep technical and operational chops: Tesla, Zoox, Stanford, Harvard, and Carnegie Mellon robotics

  • Restaurants are just the beginning: Focal's platform is built to extend into homes, offices, warehouses, transit shelters, and hospitals

  • First-mover advantage in one of the most important hospitality markets in the country, with full support from the founding team

About Focal

Focal is a San Francisco-based robotics company creating a world where comfort is personal, effortless, and sustainable. Through AI-enabled hardware, our personal comfort system delivers targeted, autonomous warmth while eliminating the energy and cost inefficiencies of traditional heating systems. We've raised $5M in funding and logged 30,000+ hours of live operation across Michelin-star restaurant groups, regional chains, and independent operators.

Learn more at focalheat.co or reach out at hello@focalheat.co.

Apply once. Then go straight to the hiring manager.

After you apply, unlock the direct contact details of the people who actually make the call. A quick follow-up makes you 5x more likely to land an interview.

MR

Marcus Rivera

Chief Revenue Officer

m.rivera@company.com
linkedin.com/in/marcusrivera
Unlocked after you apply
·

Related jobs

Other jobs at Focal

Premium

Reach out to the hiring manager directly.

Gain access to the contact details of the hiring managers who actually decide, and reach out to network with them directly. That, plus more when you upgrade:

  • Full match report with fit score and gaps
  • Career diagnostics on how recruiters read you
  • Curated company matches and warm intros
  • 48h early access to new roles

Cancel anytime.