Account Executive, Startups

Blacksmith•San Francisco, CA

1d•$180,000 - $200,000

About The Position

As an Account Executive, Startups, you'll own Blacksmith's new business motion across early-stage startups, with a particular focus on YC companies and the broader venture-backed startup ecosystem. You'll work with companies at the point where engineering teams are growing quickly, infrastructure decisions are still being made, and developer velocity matters enormously. Your job is to identify the startups with the potential to become great Blacksmith customers, get in early, and grow with them. This is a high-velocity hunter role. You'll build pipeline, develop relationships across the startup ecosystem, work directly with founders and engineering leaders, and close a high volume of net-new customers. You'll also help us build the playbook. Startups are already an important part of Blacksmith's growth, and we're looking for someone who can turn that momentum into a repeatable GTM motion.

Requirements

1+ years of quota-carrying sales experience, ideally selling developer tools, infrastructure, cloud services, or technical SaaS.
Understand how startups operate and how founders and engineering leaders make buying decisions.
Are a true hunter who enjoys opening doors, building relationships, and winning new logos.
Have strong instincts for identifying promising companies and getting involved early.
Can run a high volume of opportunities without sacrificing follow-through or customer experience.
Are comfortable selling directly to founders, CTOs, and engineers.
Are technically curious and willing to understand how the product actually works.
Move quickly. You don't need a six-step enterprise process to move a motivated customer forward.
Think creatively about pipeline generation and don't rely solely on sequences and cold outbound.
Want to build a motion rather than inherit one.

Nice To Haves

You've worked at an early-stage startup yourself.
You have an existing network across YC, venture-backed startups, founders, or investors.
You've sold into Seed through Series B companies.
You've built startup, emerging, or SMB sales motions before.
You understand GitHub Actions, CI/CD, developer infrastructure, or cloud economics.
You have experience with product-led or usage-based businesses.
You're active in the startup community and genuinely enjoy meeting founders and learning what they're building.
You've built a territory, community, or ecosystem from scratch.

Responsibilities

Own the startup ecosystem
Build and own a territory of high-growth, venture-backed startups.
Develop deep relationships across the YC ecosystem and broader startup community.
Identify promising companies early and build relationships before infrastructure decisions are locked in.
Become a trusted resource for founders and engineering leaders as they think about CI, developer infrastructure, and scaling their engineering organizations.
Build pipeline from the ground up
Generate your own pipeline through targeted outbound, referrals, events, founder networks, VC relationships, and creative prospecting.
Use funding, hiring, GitHub activity, engineering growth, product adoption, and other signals to identify startups at the right moment to engage.
Build relationships with accelerators, investors, founders, and other people who can create leverage across the startup ecosystem.
Find creative ways to engage great companies rather than relying on high-volume outbound.
Win early and grow with customers
Work directly with founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, and developers to understand their infrastructure and development workflows.
Help startups quickly evaluate and adopt Blacksmith.
Run fast, lightweight sales cycles that match how startups actually buy.
Identify companies with the potential to become significant Blacksmith customers as they scale.
Build relationships that can grow from an initial team into company-wide adoption.
Sell a deeply technical product
Develop a strong understanding of CI/CD, GitHub Actions, cloud infrastructure, developer workflows, and cloud economics.
Partner with Solutions Engineers when deeper technical discovery or evaluations are required.
Understand how a startup builds and ships software and identify where Blacksmith can materially improve developer velocity.
Translate improvements in speed, reliability, and infrastructure cost into a clear value proposition for founders and engineering teams.
Help build our startup GTM motion
Develop a point of view on how Blacksmith should win the startup market.
Help shape our YC, accelerator, and venture ecosystem programs.
Identify patterns across our fastest-growing customers and turn them into repeatable acquisition plays.
Bring feedback directly from founders and developers to product and engineering.
Experiment quickly, measure what works, and scale the motions that produce results.