Account Executive – Defense & Enterprise (m/f/d)

Job description

Role Hive Robotics is building Europe’s first full-stack orchestration platform for unmanned systems: connecting, controlling, and commanding multi-vendor drone and robot swarms. Our RF communication systems are Made in Germany, deployed on active frontlines, and targeting a highly valued tactical communication market with zero sovereign alternatives today. As our first dedicated Account Executive, you own the sales pipeline: every opportunity from a lead to a signed contract. You take over our existing customer accounts and drive the opportunities our founders and Business Development have opened, with the first new deals expected to close within 3 months. You currently report to the CEO. This role is customer-facing by design: expect 30–50% travel to customer sites, procurement offices, partners and trade fairs across Germany and Europe, sometimes internationally. The rest of the time you work alongside Engineering, Product Management and our Field Application Engineers. Responsibilities Pipeline & Deals Own the sales pipeline end-to-end: qualify every lead that our founders or Business Development generate, and move it stage by stage to signature Run discovery and qualification against a fixed gate: pain, budget, decision-making unit and timing are understood before we invest in a technical deep dive Lead the engagement with the customer’s buying team: end users, engineers, procurement, legal and IT, with a clear next step and date on every opportunity Orchestrate the deal team: bring in our engineers and Field Application Engineers for demos, trials and technical deep dives, and Product Management for configuration and fit Adapt our sales process to the defense and enterprise buying cycle, e.g. long procurements, multiple trials run, and security reviews Keep the pipeline honest: stage discipline, forecast and CRM hygiene, and a weekly pipeline review you run for the founders Existing Customers, Expansion & References Take over our active customers as their commercial owner: quarterly account plans, follow-on orders, expansion into new units and use cases, and every escalation that touches the relationship Run regular account reviews with the customer together with the Field Application Engineer who owns adoption: what is deployed, what is used, what comes next Turn deployed systems into referrals: reference visits, quotes and case material that Business Development and the founders can open new doors with Negotiate upsells, cross-sells, follow-ons and expansion contracts through to signature Offers, Tenders & Closing Own the offer document: pricing, terms and conditions, the cost-benefit case on the customer’s own data, and the project plan to signature Lead our responses to RFPs and public tenders under national and EU procedures: bid/no-bid, compliance matrix, technical volumes from engineering and the field team. Get a trial agreement signed before any customer trial starts: scope, duration, success criteria, pilot price and the path to the main contract; you drive it, Ops owns the paperwork Drive every deal to signature: you request the contract from Operations, keep the customer and the internal side moving, and close. Build and maintain our commercial offer and tender templates (pricing, structure, technical narrative) so every proposal starts from a proven base Hand over signed contracts cleanly: to Operations as a confirmed customer order, to the Field Application Engineer for onboarding Requirements Must Have min. 7+ years better more in B2B sales of complex, multi-stakeholder deals, ideally in a growing company Track record of closing deals with defense or public-sector buyers: know how national armed forces (e.g. Bundeswehr), governmental security authorities (e.g. Police) and procurement offices and primes buy, and how a public tender run Hands-on daily work in a CRM and a disciplined qualification method (e.g. MEDDPICC): your forecast is something the company can plan on Comfortable selling a technical product to technical and non-technical stakeholders, and knowing when to bring in the engineers Closer’s mindset: you treat an opportunity without a next step and a date as a problem, not a pipeline entry Structured working style: your offers, decisions and customer commitments are written down so that Operations, the field team and the founders can act on them without asking Willingness to travel 30–50 % across Germany and Europe, sometimes travel beyond Europe Eligibility and willingness to undergo security vetting for access to customer sites Fluent German and English Nice to Have An existing network in the DACH defense ecosystem: Bundeswehr, procurement offices, primes, integrators Technical fluency in unmanned systems, RF communication, command-and-control or robotics Experience selling hardware or combined hardware and software systems, with lead times, trials and delivery commitments Prior work in defense, aerospace, security, or another regulated environment Experience building a sales pipeline or sales function from scratch rather than inheriting one