Founding Account Executive - ~$350K OTE - Bay Area - AI Expert Services & Training Data - Remote US

Opportunity Overview – Founding AE, AI Expert Services (remote)

A growth-stage AI data company is hiring a Founding AE for its AI Expert Services vertical, a new revenue line selling subject-matter-expert (SME) services and human-generated training data into ~60–70 frontier AI labs and AI-native companies building foundation models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, and peers). This is a quota-carrying, 0→1 individual contributor role for a builder who can create the GTM motion from scratch, land initial reference accounts, and expand a concentrated named-account territory into a repeatable $2M+ book of business.

A growth-stage AI data company is a ~100-employee, PE-backed AI data company recently acquired by a ~10,000-employee global platform. This role combines founder-level ownership with the infrastructure and scale of an established parent, operating within a highly concentrated TAM with only a handful of credible competitors. Fully remote in the US, W2 with full benefits, reporting to the SVP and Co-Founder.

Solution

The AI Expert Services vertical sells vetted, domain-expert human labor to frontier AI labs and AI-native builders. SMEs with deep fintech, healthcare, legal, and other regulated-industry expertise generate the post-training prompts, answers, reasoning traces, and evaluations that leading foundation models need to reach expert-level performance in high-stakes domains.

Unlike broad data-labeling vendors, AI Expert Services is a concentrated, high-margin offering: the company sources, vets, and manages credentialed SMEs (MDs, CPAs, JDs, PhDs, senior practitioners), then deploys them against model-training tasks billed on an hourly basis. The company’s existing platform, global operations footprint, and in-house contributor network of 500,000+ give this new vertical immediate scale advantages over the 6–7 competitors targeting the same TAM.

How the Business Works

AI Expert Services is an hourly, services-based business, not SaaS. Customers engage the company to stand up pods of credentialed SMEs against specific model-training workstreams, then expand scope as new domains, modalities, and evaluation needs emerge. Revenue is driven by landing initial projects, proving quality and throughput, and growing hours-per-account over time rather than by recurring subscriptions.

Role

• Founding, quota-carrying Individual Contributor reporting to the SVP and Co-Founder. Fully remote across the US with access to the San Francisco office. Travel required for key customer meetings, conferences, and strategic accounts.

• ~$350K OTE at a 40/60 base-to-variable split with a $2M quota. Uncapped comp designed to reward landing and expanding initial AI Expert Services accounts. W2 with full benefits including 401k and health plan. No equity due to PE-backed structure.

• Deal sizes range from $250K to $2M+ with meaningful expansion potential as SME pods scale. Hourly, services-based model where customers expand scope across domains and use cases. You own initial land and deep account expansion.

• First dedicated AE for the AI Expert Services vertical. You will build the GTM motion from scratch and own a concentrated territory of ~60–70 frontier AI labs and AI-native companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, etc.).

• Primary buyers include post-training leads, research engineers, heads of data, and AI product leaders. Pipeline is driven through targeted outbound, warm intros, and relationship-based selling into a tight buyer community. This is a consultative, technical sale where credibility matters.

• 8 to 10+ years of enterprise B2B sales experience closing $250K–$2M+ deals into AI-native or highly technical buyers. Direct experience selling expert services, RLHF, post-training data, or similar offerings is strongly preferred. Not a fit for SaaS-only or data-labeling-only backgrounds.

• Not for SMB or mid-market sellers, high-volume transactional reps, or candidates looking to learn AI.

• Priority hire. You will define the playbook, land initial reference logos, and build the foundation for the next wave of sellers.

Why Join

• Founding AE for a brand-new AI Expert Services vertical, defining the playbook end-to-end

• Founder-level ownership with the backing and infrastructure of a 10,000+ employee global platform

• Selling into the ~60–70 frontier AI labs building the world’s most important foundation models

• Uncapped comp (~$350K OTE, 40/60) with direct reporting line to the SVP and Co-Founder

Culture

• Acquired by a global services platform in February 2026, bringing the scale of a ~10,000-employee, PE-backed parent. The company operates independently with its own P&L and maintains a startup-oriented, agile culture.

• Co-Founder and hiring manager has 15+ years scaling startups in edtech and compliance.

• Rated 4.6/5 on Glassdoor (80 reviews, 92% recommend) and 4.3/5 on G2. Recognized with awards including Best AI Training Data Vendor (2023), Global AI Summit Award for Conversational AI, and Stevie Awards for Most Innovative Tech Startup.

• “The platform gave me access to top-tier pre-trained vision, NLP, and speech models with a simple, intuitive interface.” – G2 Review

Official Job Description

A growth-stage AI data company is hiring a Founding, quota-carrying Account Executive to launch and scale the AI Expert Services vertical across the US market. This is a 0→1 role owning pipeline development, the first reference accounts, and expansion of a concentrated named-account territory of ~60–70 frontier AI labs and AI-native builders. The Founding AE sells vetted subject-matter-expert (SME) services and human-generated training data on an hourly, services-based model into the teams building the world’s most important foundation models.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build the AI Expert Services GTM motion from scratch. Own the full enterprise sales lifecycle, from pipeline generation through close, across a named-account territory of ~60–70 frontier AI labs and AI-native companies building foundation models.

• Build trusted relationships with post-training leads, alignment teams, research engineers, and heads of data; translate customer model-training requirements (RLHF, evaluations, reasoning traces, domain expert prompts and answers) into structured SME pod engagements alongside internal solution and delivery teams. Land initial engagements, prove quality and throughput, and expand hours-per-account into seven-figure run rates.

Required Experience:

• 8–10+ years of enterprise B2B sales with a track record of closing $250K–$2M+ deals and demonstrated quota achievement at or above $2M. Comfort operating as a founding seller building a motion from scratch.

• Direct experience selling expert services, RLHF, post-training data, model evaluations, or adjacent AI model-training offerings into frontier AI labs or AI-native builders. Sellers from pure SaaS or data-labeling-only backgrounds will not be a fit.

Preferred Experience:

• Deep familiarity with frontier AI post-training workflows, RLHF pipelines, reasoning and evaluation data, and domain SME engagements (fintech, healthcare, legal, regulated industries). Experience selling into OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Mistral, or peer labs. Comfortable with globally distributed SME delivery teams.

• Tools: Salesforce, HubSpot, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo (or similar).