--- title: 'Business Development Associate at Atoms' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/business-development-associate-atoms-new-york-61pe3hggbtmg' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # Business Development Associate at Atoms - **Company:** Atoms - **Location:** New York, NY - **Posted:** 2026-08-21 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/cssmerge/jobs/8738991002 ## Job description ## Who we are Atoms is building the machines that power the next era of progress. Over the last decade, software has transformed the digital world. But the physical world, where food is made, minerals are mined, goods are moved, and industries are run, remains far less intelligent, far less efficient, and far more constrained. We’re changing that. Atoms builds Physical AI— real-world robots for the industries that move civilization forward, starting with food, mining, and transport. Our systems are designed to understand, predict, and control the real world with precision, turning complex physical operations into something more reliable, more scalable, and more productive. This work requires more than robotics. It requires deep integration across hardware, software, AI, operations, manufacturing, and real estate. We don’t just build machines in a lab. We deploy them into real environments, operate them, learn from them, and improve them until they work at scale. We are roboticists, engineers, operators, and builders. We believe the next great technology companies will not only transform information, but the physical systems that shape everyday life. If you want to work on hard problems with real-world impact, join us. ## About the role This is a Business Development Associate role on the Heroes team, our group focuses on the most loved restaurant brands in the country, the ones with 1 to 20 locations, obsessive customer followings, and real expansion potential. As a Business Development Associate, you get to own a market: finding the right operators, building the relationship, running the pitch, and helping to get the deal signed. That means real ownership and real accountability from day one. Your pipeline is your business, and what you build and close shows up directly in Atoms' growth. ## What you’ll do Prospecting & Pipeline Generation - Research, identify, and engage the most loved restaurant brands in the country, mid-market operators with 1-20 locations who've outgrown a single kitchen but aren't enterprise scale. - Build a personalized outbound strategy across phone, email, LinkedIn, and in person, including hosting and attending industry events, dinners, and meetups where these operators actually spend their time. - Own your pipeline end to end. You source it, qualify it, pitch it, and support close. - Build and maintain a healthy pipeline against clear outreach and revenue targets. Strategic Account Research & Analysis - Conduct in-depth research on restaurant brands: leadership, unit economics, expansion plans, and competitive position. - Partner with our Strategy and Analytics teams to turn raw data (delivery volumes, whitespace, ROIC) into a compelling, story-driven case for why CloudKitchens, Otter, or Picnic is the right next move for an operator. - Monitor industry and competitive trends to sharpen outbound strategy and surface new opportunities. - Bring market insights and operator feedback back to the team to help shape BD strategy. Sales Strategy & Cross-Functional Collaboration - Allocate budget for your respective market and own market strategy - Support territory planning and account prioritization for your market. Pipeline Performance & Operational Excellence - Look for ways to make your own workflow faster and smarter, including using AI to speed up research, outreach, and reporting. - Bring a builder's mindset: test, measure, and improve how you prospect. Executive Communication & Relationship Building - Build genuine relationships with restaurant founders and operators. This is a business built on trust, not just a pipeline of accounts. - Represent Atoms, and the full CloudKitchens, Otter, and Picnic story, with professionalism and precision. - Communicate pipeline updates, market insights, and competitive intelligence clearly to sales leadership. ## What we’re looking for - 1-4 years of experience in Business Development, Investment Banking, Go-to-Market, Consulting, Strategy, or Operations . Client-facing experience helps, but we care more about whether you're smart, analytical, charismatic, and genuinely curious about BD and the restaurant industry than about your exact title history. - A track record of generating outbound pipelines, ideally in mid-market or small/independent-business accounts. This is a different motion than enterprise procurement cycles. - Strong research and analytical instincts, with the ability to turn data into a story that lands with a founder or operator. - Excellent written and verbal communication, comfortable moving between a founder's kitchen and a boardroom. - A high sense of ownership. You want a role where the outcome is on you, not a role with a lot of guardrails. - Comfortable in a fast-paced, high-accountability environment where priorities shift. - Bonus: familiarity with Salesforce or similar sales tools is nice to have, not required. We'd rather hire for judgment and hustle than tool familiarity, you'll pick the tools up fast. ## Preferred industries and experience We're especially interested in people with a background in: - Business/Corporate Development - Entrepreneurship / Startup Founder - Go-to-Market Strategy- Management Consulting or Business Operations/Strategy - Restaurant, Hospitality, or Food Technology - High-Growth Technology, SaaS, or Marketplace Businesses Target schools We recruit heavily from highly selective universities with rigorous business, economics, communications, engineering, or quantitative programs, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Penn (Wharton), Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Georgia Tech. Equivalent international institutions and exceptional candidates from other schools with strong professional experience are absolutely considered too. We care more about the person in front of us than the name on the diploma. ## Why join us At Atoms, you’ll work on one of the defining challenges of our time—bringing automation into the physical world to drive real, lasting impact. We exist to uncover valuable unknown truths and turn them into progress, which means constantly pushing beyond what’s known and building what doesn’t yet exist. The work is ambitious and often challenging, but it’s grounded in a shared sense of purpose and a team committed to seeing it through together. Our work only matters if it serves others, and we know that meaningful progress depends on the trust of the people we serve and the strength of our team—so we invest in both, creating an environment where you can do your best work and grow. What else you need to know This role is based in our New York office. Atoms is a company driven by invention and continuous change - we are constantly reimagining our industries, building new products, and refining how we operate. We do our best work together. That’s why all of our office-based teams work onsite, five days a week. The base salary range for this role is $80,000 - $100,000 per year. Add’l Incentive Compensation: Individuals can earn an estimated annual incentive compensation range of $30,000 - $50,000 when meeting performance expectations. Actual incentive compensation varies based on individual sales performance and targets. Actual compensation will be determined on an individual basis and may vary depending on experience, skills, and qualifications. Base salary is just one part of your total rewards package. You may also be eligible for equity awards and an annual performance-based bonus. Benefits Summary (USA Full-Time Exempt Employees): - Medical, dental, and vision insurance (multiple plans, incl. HSA options). - Company-paid life and disability insurance (short- and long-term). - Voluntary insurance: accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity. - Optional supplemental life insurance for self, spouse, and children. - Pet insurance discount. - 401(k). - Health Savings Account (HSA) - Flexible Spending Accounts (Healthcare, Dependent Care, Commuter) - Time Off policies: - Discretionary vacation days - 8 paid holidays per year - Paid sick time - Paid Bereavement leave - Paid Parental Leave Benefits are subject to change at the company's discretion. Atoms accepts applications on an ongoing basis. Ready to join us as we serve those who serve others? #LI-Onsite ## About Atoms ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Atoms builds physical automation systems—robotics, AI, software, and infrastructure—for mining, transport, and food industries to automate the physical world. - **Entity Type**: Private (formerly City Storage Systems; rebranded from CloudKitchens/ProFood parent) - **Headquarters**: Los Angeles, California, United States - **Founded**: Rebranded as Atoms in March 2026; predecessor City Storage Systems founded earlier (~2018) - **Founders**: Travis Kalanick (CEO) ## Core Business - Primary industry: Physical AI, Robotics, Automation Machinery Manufacturing, Industrial Infrastructure - Target customers: Mining/quarry operators, transportation & logistics companies, food service brands and kitchens (B2B, heavy industrial) - Mission or purpose statement: “We build progress machines.” / “The constraint on human progress is our ability to automate the physical world.” ## Products & Services - **Atoms Mining**: Autonomous haulage systems for mines and quarries designed to improve productivity, safety, and efficiency in complex industrial environments. - **Atoms Transport**: Wheelbase for robots — autonomous delivery and logistics systems for moving goods. Includes the acquired Pronto AI technology (acquisition completed April 2026). - **Atoms Food (ProFood)**: Robotics for better food. Automated kitchen systems that deliver consistent, affordable meals at scale; kitchen infrastructure platforms (bringing orders, delivery, operations into one platform); food real estate; Lab37 (an operating system for food facilities); and a forthcoming “built” meals brand. - **Lab37**: The operating system/software layer that connects and orchestrates Atoms’ physical automation across domains. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding – Not publicly disclosed; previously raised significant capital as City Storage Systems/CloudKitchens (estimated at over $1B in prior rounds); 414 employees on LinkedIn as of mid-2026 - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Travis Kalanick (founder/CEO, previously co-founded Uber); partners include mining/quarry operators, food brands (specific names not public) - **Growth Signals**: 414 employees (+13.2% monthly growth); operates in 24 countries; 26 active job postings (+160% monthly); recent acquisition of Pronto AI (April 2026); rebranding from City Storage Systems to Atoms (March 2026) signals strategic consolidation and pivot; hiring across robotics, AI, software, hardware, operations globally ## Competitive Advantages - **Cross-stack vertical integration**: Controls sensors, compute, software, manufacturing, operations, real estate, energy, and infrastructure — a rare “full-stack” approach to physical AI. - **Founder advantage**: Led by Travis Kalanick (Uber co-founder) who has deep experience scaling category-defining companies and attracting top engineering/operations talent. - **Real-world deployment**: Robots with “real jobs” — not lab demos — deployed in working mines, kitchens, and transport systems today. - **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on “cross-stack competence,” ownership, and solving problems “most companies won’t attempt.” - **Global footprint**: Presence in 24 countries allows rapid deployment and operations at scale. ## Strategic Focus - Consolidating formerly separate brands (CloudKitchens, ProFood, Pronto AI) under one unified “Atoms” identity to create a single physical AI platform - Expanding autonomous mining haulage into more quarries and mines globally - Scaling food automation from kitchen robotics to end-to-end food infrastructure (real estate, ordering, delivery, operations) - Growing AI, ML, and autonomy capabilities (hiring Senior Software Engineer - ML Infrastructure, Backend Infrastructure, Robotics Engineer) - International expansion with dedicated regional roles (APAC, LATAM, Europe) ## Why Work Here - **High ownership**: “Take ownership early, and contribute from day one” — interns and new hires work on live products, not side projects. - **Hard problems**: Solving physical-world automation challenges that most companies won’t attempt — mining, logistics, food production at scale. - **Compensation**: “Outsized rewards for outsized performance” — competitive compensation, healthcare, benefits, and PTO. - **Culture**: “Builders” and “hardcore engineers” who have scaled category-defining companies — a relentless, high-expectation environment focused on excellence. - **Work policy**: Mix of in-office roles (Mountain View, CA; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Austin, TX) and international locations (Vilnius, LTU; Makati, PH; Bogotá, COL; São Paulo, BRA). Remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated but many roles list specific city locations. - **Tech stack**: Modern — Python, TypeScript, Go, Java, Kubernetes, Docker, PostgreSQL, Redis, GraphQL, gRPC, Bazel, Google Cloud, NVIDIA, dbt, Looker, Airflow. - **Team composition**: 25% of employees in technical roles (154 people); strong presence of HR, legal, finance, and operations supporting global scale; talent sourced from CloudKitchens, Amazon, Uber, Google, ProFood Properties, City Storage Systems. ## Sources 1. [atoms.co](https://atoms.co/) 2. [atoms.co/careers](https://atoms.co/careers) 3. [atoms.co/openroles](https://atoms.co/openroles) 4. [LinkedIn – Atoms](https://www.linkedin.com/company/atomsco) 5. [Greenhouse – Atoms Jobs](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/cssmerge) ## Other roles at Atoms - [Picnic - Delivery Driver - Carlsbad / San Diego](https://feeny.ai/job/picnic-delivery-driver-carlsbad-san-diego-atoms-carlsbad-43w4nr5aas9p) — Carlsbad, CA - [Facilities Supervisor](https://feeny.ai/job/facilities-supervisor-atoms-salmiya-cd2xhx82xz93) — Salmiya, Kuwait - [Commercial HVAC/R Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-hvac-r-technician-atoms-los-angeles-m9p1230hj21e) — Los Angeles, CA - [Workplace Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/workplace-associate-atoms-riyadh-czdctd11tcz5) — Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - [Accountant](https://feeny.ai/job/accountant-atoms-sao-paulo-e44y3m70r2hm) — São Paulo, Brazil - [Light Commercial HVAC/R Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/light-commercial-hvac-r-technician-atoms-atlanta-n7gp5q8sw2jt) — Atlanta, GA - [Structural Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/structural-engineer-atoms-san-francisco-7q1sz8jjzc0r) — San Francisco, CA - [Real Estate Acquisitions Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/real-estate-acquisitions-associate-atoms-los-angeles-g44kedsxttw9) — Los Angeles, CA - [Strategic Finance Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-finance-lead-atoms-new-york-w8sh1egg50f3) — New York, NY - [Safety Validation Lead, Scenarios](https://feeny.ai/job/safety-validation-lead-scenarios-atoms-san-francisco-hcb63jg85a32) — San Francisco, CA