Founding Account Executive

Job description

WHY THIS ROLE IS EXCITING - Do you want to own revenue at an early-stage AI company, not just carry a quota? - Do you like running real deals end-to-end, from first conversation through POV, close, and expansion? - Do you want a role where your judgment directly shapes how a company wins, prices, and scales? At Delphina, this role sits at the center of growth. You’ll own pipeline and deals, guide sophisticated buyers through high-stakes proof-of-value motions, and turn early wins into durable expansion. You’ll work directly with the founders and help define how we move from founder-led sales to a repeatable, scalable GTM engine. This is not a traditional “run the script” AE role. It’s for someone who wants real ownership -- of customers, revenue, and the systems that turn early traction into a company. WHY THIS MARKET MATTERS Most companies have plenty of data but still struggle to answer their most important questions. Dashboards are brittle. Analytics is slow. Answers often require scarce data engineering time. And executives don’t trust results enough to act. Delphina helps teams answer complex, decision-critical questions quickly and reliably -- without long build cycles or heavy engineering lift. Our customers aren’t buying prettier charts. They’re deciding where to invest, what to stop, and how to grow. That urgency creates real budgets, senior buyers, and expansion-driven deals -- the kind of market where strong AEs can build meaningful, repeatable revenue. WHY DELPHINA WILL WIN - Founders and team with experience solving these problems at Uber, Google, Meta, OpenAI; educations from Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley - Support and funding from world-class angels and VCs including Fei-Fei Li, Costanoa Ventures, and Radical Ventures - AI-native technology designed for complex questions, not a bolt-on to pre-LLM analytics - Hands-on POVs that deliver value fast and create conviction - Founder-led product and GTM with tight feedback loops - Early customer traction and a clear path to scaling revenue THE ROLE Your job: build pipeline, close deals, and turn early wins into expansion -- while helping define how we sell. You are the quarterback of the buying process. You own deal strategy, stakeholder coverage, commercial terms, and the path to a signed agreement. You’ll own deals end-to-end: sourcing and qualifying opportunities, running discovery, guiding customers through POVs, building business cases, closing contracts, and identifying expansion paths. Along the way, you’ll help turn what works into repeatable sales plays, pricing intuition, and GTM systems that scale beyond founder involvement. This role sits at the intersection of sales, value engineering, and early GTM strategy. It’s ideal for someone who wants quota-carrying responsibility and meaningful influence over how the company grows. WHAT YOU’LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR Pipeline & Deals - Build and maintain a healthy pipeline of mid-market (200-2,000 employee) or enterprise (2,000+ employees) customers, with a path toward enterprise expansion - Own deals from first conversation through close, with clear qualification and momentum Discovery - Turn vague customer interest into decision-relevant problems tied to real business outcomes - Identify buying committees, success criteria, and blockers early POV Leadership - You own the commercial and decision strategy of the POV, while partnering with the Solutions Engineer as the technical and analytical lead. - Lead high-impact proof-of-value motions in partnership with solutions and product - Keep POVs focused, urgent, and tied to a clear buying decision Value Engineering - Quantify business impact and help customers build internal conviction and a buyer-ready business case - You ensure the business case lands with the right buyers; the Solutions Engineer ensures the analysis and proof are sound. Expansion - Develop strong customer relationships and identify new use cases, teams, and value opportunities post-close GTM Building - Partner closely with founders to refine ICP, pricing intuition, qualification standards, and sales playbooks - Turn early wins (and losses) into repeatable systems Commercial Leadership - Own pricing strategy, deal structure, and contract negotiations - Balance speed, deal quality, and long-term expansion economics - Partner with founders on pricing intuition and packaging decisions WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR Must-Have - 3–5+ years of experience as a quota-carrying AE in B2B SaaS, ideally at fast-growing startups (Seed–Series C) - Proven track record of closing mid-market or enterprise deals with multiple stakeholders - Strong discovery skills and comfort selling to both technical and business buyers - Ability to lead complex sales cycles that include POVs, pilots, or evaluations - Comfort operating with ambiguity and building while selling - High urgency and bias toward action - Clear, confident communicator -- written and verbal -- with senior leaders - Ownership mindset: you take responsibility for outcomes, not just activities - Enough technical fluency to lead technical buyers, ask the right questions, and partner effectively with Solutions Engineering - You use AI to build leverage (research, prep, follow-ups, systems), not just write emails Nice-to-Have - Experience selling analytics, data, or AI products (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, dbt, Looker, Tableau) - Experience selling deals that expand over time (land-and-expand motions) - Experience helping build early sales playbooks, pricing intuition, or qualification frameworks THIS ROLE IS NOT - A demo-only or order-taking sales role - A narrowly scoped SDR-to-AE handoff machine - A post-sales account management role - A role where product, pricing, and GTM strategy are “already figured out” WHY THIS ROLE IS SPECIAL - You’ll help define how Delphina goes from founder-led sales to a real GTM engine - You’ll work directly with the founders on deals, strategy, and positioning - You’ll define how Delphina sells, then help hire and shape the AE team that follows. If you perform and have the right skills, there is ample opportunity for management roles as the company grows - You’ll sell a product that delivers real, provable value fast, and gain rare experience selling AI through POV-driven enterprise motions - You’ll build a foundation that can scale into a full sales org - Industry competitive base salary plus commission with uncapped upside - Generous equity as part of the founding GTM team