TESS Search Partners is proud to be partnering with Transient Detect to appoint their founding commercial leader, a rare chance to build the revenue engine of a venture-backed Australian water-technology company from the ground up, working directly alongside the Founder & CEO. Every day, invisible pressure transients fatigue and fracture the buried pipes our cities depend on.

Transient

Detect (TD) makes those hidden destructive forces visible, combining ruggedised high-frequency sensors (TD.Edge) with an AI analytics platform (TD.Cloud) that turns pressure data into pipe fatigue, leak detection, and asset risk intelligence for water utilities.

Reporting to the Founder & CEO, you will build a qualified pipeline across ANZ water utilities and long-contract O&M; providers and convert it into $3M ARR within 18 months against staged milestones. This is a hunter role with a genuine leadership trajectory. You will hold delegated pricing authority from day one within an agreed envelope, and design the commercial playbook, qualification criteria, pilot-to-programme structure, pricing, and channel strategy, that you will scale as you grow into leading TD’s commercial function alongside the CEO.

Key responsibilities

- Build and own a qualified pipeline at 3× rolling quota coverage across ANZ utilities and O&M; providers
- Run consultative, technically credible sales cycles — discovery, network problem framing, pilot scoping, business case development (capex deferral, risk reduction, NRW), proposal, and close
- Convert pilots into scaled, multi-year programmes — every pilot qualified as the first stage of network-wide deployment
- Engage asset planning, network operations, and digital/innovation buyers, and represent TD at OzWater, AWA, and industry forums




- Feed competitive and voice-of-customer intelligence into product planning, in close partnership with TD’s Product Manager

About you

- Technical solution-selling pedigree, complex, multi-stakeholder B2B sales with 6–24 month cycles, ideally pilots converting to programmes
- Experience selling IoT hardware / connected devices and/or enterprise SaaS — both strongly preferred
- A proven record of building pipeline independently from a cold or near-cold territory
- Technical credibility, comfortable with engineers, asset planners, and operations staff on instrumentation, data, and network performance
- Hunger, self-starting, resilient, and energised by the pace and ambiguity of an early-stage company
- Willingness to travel regularly across the east coast, periodically to SA/WA/NZ, and occasionally to Asia A STEM background, experience selling into water utilities or adjacent regulated sectors (energy, gas, rail, mining services), familiarity with utility procurement, or existing networks within ANZ utilities and major O&M; contractors will set you apart.

What’s on offer

- $200,000–$220,000 base + superannuation, depending on experience and sector networks
- Uncapped commission, milestone- and ARR-linked, with on-target earnings of circa $300,000 at full milestone attainment
- Commission guarantee through the ramp period, reflecting the realistic length of utility sales cycles
- Delegated pricing authority from day one, expanding at each quarterly review as track record is established
- A genuine leadership runway to build the commercial function you will go on to lead
- Remote/home-based on the east coast, quarterly all-hands in Adelaide, travel and expenses covered.

For a confidential discussion about this appointment, please contact Donna Ferris or Mina Jafari at TESS Search Partners.

All applications and enquiries will be treated in strict confidence.

📌 Head of Commercial (New South Wales)
🏢 TESS Search Partners
📍 New South Wales