Founding Account Executive

Job description

ROLE OVERVIEW We are hiring a full-cycle Account Executive who will own both pipeline generation and closing. As an early GTM hire, you will have significant ownership, meaningful equity, and a direct role in building our commercial organization from the ground up. You will work closely with founders, engineers, and FDEs to turn early customer traction into a repeatable GTM motion. This role is for someone who wants to build the sales organization—not inherit an established playbook. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Build qualified pipeline through outbound - Create, run, monitor, and improve outbound sequences - Lead discovery and qualification calls - Own prospects from initial conversation through pilot, negotiation, and close - Partner with FDEs during onboarding, kickoff, and deployment - Maintain customer relationships and identify expansion opportunities - Develop messaging, sales collateral, qualification criteria, and sales processes - Translate customer feedback into useful insights for product and engineering - Help shape how we hire, train, and structure the future GTM organization WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE - Consistently creates and closes qualified pipeline - Builds credibility with engineering and technical buyers - Moves customers efficiently from discovery through deployment - Identifies and closes expansion opportunities - Improves the systems and messaging used throughout the sales process - Takes ownership beyond an individual revenue target - Helps turn early customer traction into a scalable commercial organization WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - At least one year of full-cycle sales experience spanning pipeline generation and closing - Personally created outbound pipeline rather than relying entirely on SDRs or inbound - Experience selling technical products to engineering or similarly technical buyers - Experience selling to startups - Familiarity with high-velocity, usage-based, or pay-as-you-go sales motions - Strong written and verbal communication - Ability to operate effectively without an established sales playbook - Strong reasoning and the ability to explain why a sales approach succeeded or failed - Genuine interest in meaningful ownership, equity, and company-building - Willingness to work from our San Francisco office five days per week NICE TO HAVE - Developer tools, infrastructure, data, or AI sales experience - Founding AE or early GTM experience - Experience working closely with technical implementation or deployment teams - Evidence of resilience in difficult or ambiguous environments - Independent or unusual thinking EXPERIENCE AND SENIORITY We care more about relevant experience, ownership, learning velocity, and slope than title or total years of experience. LOCATION San Francisco, in office five days per week. COMPENSATION Competitive base salary, performance-based variable compensation, and meaningful equity.