Founding Account Executive

Job Description

Founding Account Executive

New York, NY (Hybrid, 3 days per week in office)

Base: $150,000 to $180,000 | OTE: $300,000 to $380,000, uncapped | Meaningful early-stage equity

About our client

Our client is a venture-backed AI infrastructure company that has built a real-time compliance and policy enforcement layer for AI-generated communications. AI now speaks on behalf of entire organizations, and existing tools only catch problems after a message has been sent, when the risk is already out the door. Our client’s platform sits inline and checks every AI-generated and AI-assisted message against regulations, internal policies and security controls in real time, before it goes out.

They are pioneering runtime enforcement as a new category, starting with compliance for AI communications at some of the most heavily regulated companies in the world. The business is backed by a top-tier Silicon Valley venture firm and several specialist investors. The team includes engineering and AI leaders from big tech and global investment banking, led by a repeat AI founder.

The role

This is the company’s first dedicated closer, focused on winning enterprise deals and expanding large accounts. It is a true 0 to 1 role. The successful candidate will sell alongside the Founder & CEO, who works these deals hands-on, and a GTM Engineer who builds the tooling behind the motion. The product is live in production, the first proposals are out, and there are enterprise opportunities ready to close. The remit is to close them, turn early wins into a repeatable process, and then scale it.

Buyers include CISOs, Heads of AI, CTOs and engineering leaders, with compliance and risk leaders as champions and the C-suite signing. Our client sells into two segments: AI-native scale-ups, where a CTO or Head of AI can sign within weeks, and regulated enterprises, starting with financial services and expanding into healthcare, insurance and other regulated sectors. Enterprise deals are long, multi-threaded cycles involving security review, procurement, legal and a hands-on technical evaluation. Scale-up deals move fast and reward hard qualification. The successful candidate will run both end to end.

There is no sales engineer to hand off to, by design. The product is API-first, sits in front of any LLM and extends into the tools people already use. Buyers want to see it enforce their own policies, in their own stack, live. The successful candidate will run demos personally, operate the API themselves and tailor demos when a prospect asks to see how it handles their rules. Demos are where deals are won. Daily use of Claude or similar AI tools is expected.

Key responsibilities

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• Owning the full cycle on enterprise deals, from first conversation to signature
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• Generating pipeline across AI-native scale-ups and financial services, then healthcare and insurance, alongside the CEO, GTM Engineer and outbound team
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• Running live technical demos tailored to each prospect’s real policies and channels, and running proofs of concept with engineering
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• Navigating the full buying committee: security, AI, engineering, compliance, risk, procurement and the C-suite
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• Owning pricing, business cases, proposals, redlines and negotiation
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• Running a disciplined process: clean CRM, accurate forecasts, a scheduled next step on every deal, and every proposal walked through live with the buyer
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• Feeding insight back into product and marketing: what buyers ask for, where deals stall and what wins
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What our client is looking for

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• 6+ years in B2B sales closing enterprise deals of $100K+ ACV, ideally technical products (infrastructure, APIs, security, developer tools or AI) sold to technical buyers
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• A track record of hitting quota on both long enterprise cycles (security reviews, procurement, legal, technical evaluations) and fast deals with startup buyers who sign in weeks
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• Genuine technical fluency: able to demo without an SE, operate an API from a terminal or Postman, and explain the technology to a CTO and the policy mapping to a Chief Compliance Officer in the same meeting
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• AI tools embedded in the daily workflow for account research, call prep and follow-up
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• Exceptional organization: every stakeholder mapped, every forecast accurate, nothing dropped
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• Rigorous qualification: confirming pain, timeline, buying process and champion early, and walking away from deals that lack them
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• Experience selling into financial services or another heavily regulated industry
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• 0 to 1 or early-stage experience, or the person on a larger team who figured things out first. Someone who wants a sales process that is still being written, because they get to write it
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• Direct, candid and fast, with full ownership of outcomes and honesty about pipeline
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Bonus points

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• Sold AI infrastructure, security or developer-facing products to CISOs, Heads of AI, CTOs or engineering leaders
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• Experience in healthcare, insurance or other regulated sectors beyond financial services
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• A technical background in computer science, engineering or data, or a prior sales engineering role
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• First or early sales hire at a venture-backed startup
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• Has built a demo or proof of concept in Claude Code, Cursor or Codex
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How they work

The team is built for speed of execution and end-to-end ownership, operating as a multi-year, high-risk, high-reward sprint. The role is hybrid: three days a week in the New York City office, with the rest remote.

What the first year looks like

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• First 30 days: running discovery and demos independently
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• By day 90: owning a book of active opportunities, with a forecast the CEO can plan around and the first deals closed
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• End of year one: on target, with the process built becoming the playbook for the next sellers
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Compensation and benefits

Base salary $150,000 to $180,000, OTE $300,000 to $380,000 uncapped, plus meaningful early-stage equity. Top-tier medical, dental and vision coverage, plus a 401(k). Our client moves quickly and makes a decision within two weeks of the first conversation.