Enterprise Account Executive - Growth (Austin, TX)

Kong•Austin, TX

2d•$250,000 - $320,000

About The Position

Kong is hiring an Enterprise Account Executive for its Growth team to convert open-source and developer adoption into strategic, multi-year enterprise platform commitments across Kong Konnect, AI Gateway, and Service Mesh. The role owns the full sales cycle, from initial outreach through negotiation and close, and manages complex, multi-threaded enterprise deals with stated ACV of $100,000–$1 million or more. The position engages technical and executive stakeholders, including CTOs, platform and architecture leaders, and CISOs, and positions Kong's products for API, cloud-native, microservices, and generative AI workloads. The account executive owns their territory, pipeline, and deals, with support from Solutions Engineers, SDRs, Customer Success, and Kong's developer community. They provide customer feedback to product and marketing teams and represent Kong at industry events, conferences, and customer meetings. Kong describes its culture as autonomous, fast-moving, and low on bureaucracy, with a focus on execution and builders.

Requirements

At least 5 years of full-cycle closing experience with mid-market and enterprise organizations of more than 1,000 employees.
A track record of consistently exceeding quota.
Direct experience in modern B2B SaaS or infrastructure.
Ability to work with technical champions, such as engineers and architects, and executive economic buyers, such as CTOs, VP of Engineering, and CISOs.
Disciplined use of MEDDPICC or Command of the Message for pipeline generation, forecasting, and deal execution.
Consultative selling skills, including identifying customer problems, linking solutions to business outcomes, and tailoring demos.
Comfort with high-stakes negotiations and relationship building.
Account planning, industry and account research, and CRM discipline, using Salesforce or a similar system.
Ability to take ownership of a territory and adapt in a fast-moving environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience with commercial open source (COSS), developer platforms, cloud or networking, APIs, Kubernetes, or observability.

Responsibilities

Own the full sales cycle, from first outreach through negotiation and close.
Manage territory, pipeline, and enterprise deals.
Convert open-source and developer adoption into strategic, multi-year enterprise platform commitments.
Run complex, multi-threaded enterprise sales cycles with technical and executive stakeholders.
Generate pipeline, forecast accurately, and execute deals using a disciplined sales methodology.
Research accounts and industry trends and maintain Salesforce or a similar CRM for forecasting.
Discover customer problems, connect solutions to business outcomes, and tailor demos to customer needs.
Negotiate high-stakes deals and build enduring customer relationships.
Share customer feedback with product and marketing teams to inform product development and go-to-market strategy.
Represent Kong at industry events, conferences, and customer meetings.