Senior Director, Strategic Account Executive, Frontier AI, San Francisco or New York

Location: San Francisco; New York; USAWork type: HybridSeniority: Senior DirectorPrimary skill: Business DevelopmentPosted: 2026-09-29The Strategic Account Executive, Frontier AI is a senior commercial leader responsible for building and growing relationships with leading AI labs and other organizations developing advanced foundation models. The role owns a focused portfolio of priority accounts, identifying, developing, and closing opportunities across the model training and evaluation lifecycle, including RL environments, evaluations, expert data, RLHF, coding environments, and red teaming.This is not a traditional enterprise technology sales role. The successful candidate brings direct experience selling into organizations building frontier models, understands how these organizations evaluate and purchase highly technical, research-driven services, and has credibility with research, engineering, and product stakeholders. The right person recognizes where an emerging research need can become a meaningful commercial engagement and knows how to move it from an early technical conversation to a durable, expanding customer relationship.Req.#1075761842ResponsibilitiesOwn the commercial relationship and growth strategy for a focused portfolio of priority frontier AI labs and foundation-model organizationsBuild and expand relationships across research, engineering, post-training, product, research operations, procurement, and executive leadership, owning revenue, pipeline, and long-term account growthSell complex, customized services across the model development lifecycle, including RL environments, evaluations, reward and verifier-based training, RLHF, expert data, coding environments, and red-teamingDevelop opportunities from early research conversations through pilots, scaled programs, and strategic account expansion, navigating sales cycles where scope, pricing, and delivery models are built collaboratively with the customerEngage directly with researchers, engineers, and technical leaders to understand the model capabilities they are seeking to improve and the challenges preventing further progressMaintain sufficient technical fluency across RL environments, evaluations, RLHF, expert data, and agentic systems to recognize when an exploratory research discussion represents a commercial opportunityBuild a high-quality pipeline through proactive relationship development and research-driven discovery, owning opportunities from identification through proposal development, negotiation, and closeNavigate complex procurement, legal, and contracting processes while negotiating commercially attractive agreements, and drive expansion into adjacent research teams once EPAM establishes credibilityLead customer discovery with EPAM technical experts to translate research objectives into technically credible and commercially compelling solutionsCoordinate proposals, pilots, and statements of work that connect the customer's research objective to EPAM's proposed solution, structuring pilots with a clear path toward scaled engagementsBuild and maintain a strong professional network across the frontier AI research and model-development ecosystem, representing EPAM at key research conferences and technical gatheringsUse ecosystem engagement to stay close to emerging research priorities and help establish EPAM as a credible participant in the Frontier AI ecosystem, not simply a vendor selling into itRequirementsSignificant experience in strategic enterprise sales, account leadership, or business development within AI, machine learning, data services, or another highly technical marketPrior experience selling model-training, data, evaluation, or related technical services, with familiarity across RL environments, evaluations, RLHF, expert data, or red-teamingDemonstrated understanding of how frontier AI organizations buy, including experience navigating research, engineering, legal, procurement, and executive stakeholdersExperience engaging directly with AI researchers and research engineers, and developing credibility with highly technical customer audiencesExperience owning and growing strategic customer relationships into multimillion-dollar accounts through new opportunity development and long-term account planningStrong understanding of the current generative AI and frontier-model ecosystem, including the major organizations and commercial participants within itStrong commercial judgment and negotiation skills, with the ability to navigate complex contracting and procurement environmentsNice to haveDirect experience selling to organizations such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, or other leading developers of frontier modelsExperience selling services related specifically to RL environments, evaluations, expert data, RLHF, or coding-focused model trainingMeaningful participation in the Frontier AI research and industry ecosystem, including relationships built through major AI conferences and technical communitiesExperience expanding an initial pilot or research engagement into a significant multi-team or multi-year customer relationshipExperience working at a company specializing in frontier-model data, post-training, evaluations, or AI infrastructureWe offerMedical, Dental and Vision Insurance (Subsidized)Health Savings AccountFlexible Spending Accounts (Healthcare, Dependent Care, Commuter)Short-Term and Long-Term Disability (Company Provided)Life and AD&D Insurance (Company Provided)Employee Assistance ProgramUnlimited access to LinkedIn learning solutionsMatched 401(k) Retirement Savings PlanPaid Time OffLegal Plan and Identity Theft ProtectionAccident InsuranceEmployee DiscountsPet InsuranceEmployee Stock Purchase Program