Founding Account Executive

Scalar•San Francisco, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

Scalar is seeking its first Account Executive to own deals from the first call to signature. This role is crucial for scaling the company's sales efforts beyond founder-led sales. You will be instrumental in building the sales motion, establishing playbooks, and proving that deals can close without the founder's direct involvement. The ideal candidate will have experience in B2B SaaS sales, particularly with technical products sold to technical buyers. You will work closely with SDRs and a Solutions Engineer, and have a significant impact on the company's sales strategy and future hiring. This is a build role, offering high autonomy and the opportunity to shape how Scalar sells.

Requirements

Several years of quota-carrying experience in B2B SaaS, closing deals end-to-end, including security reviews and procurement.
Experience selling a technical product to a technical buyer, capable of holding a conversation with an engineering leader.
Experience working in a startup environment without a playbook and building one, or experience as an early rep in a growing team.
Strong writing skills: short, specific, and human.
Ability to be honest about product limitations and win future renewals.
Comfort with the appeal of sitting next to the CEO while they sell, and then being measured on doing it independently.
Ability to hold a forecast and communicate uncomfortable numbers.
Collaborative approach to finding the right answer, operating with kindness.

Nice To Haves

Experience in developer-tools, API, or infrastructure companies selling to engineering teams.
Experience as the first AE at a company and insights on what to do differently.
Comfort with technical evaluations, including running POCs and identifying stall points.
Fluency with sales tooling like HubSpot, Apollo, and Clay, with an instinct for automation.
Experience using API documentation and opinions on good documentation.
Experience selling against incumbents that customers are tolerating.

Responsibilities

Closing deals from first call through signature, including discovery, technical evaluation, pricing, security review, procurement, and the close.
Taking over live pipeline from the founder and managing it without loss.
Collaborating with the Solutions Engineer as a pair, where the SE runs the technical evaluation and you manage the deal surrounding it.
Displacing competitors like Redocly, Mintlify, Stoplight, and ReadMe, and addressing 'build it ourselves' scenarios.
Handling enterprise requirements such as self-hosting, SSO/SAML, air-gapped deployments, security questionnaires, and procurement cycles.
Participating in pricing and packaging discussions with the founders.
Driving expansion within existing customer accounts.
Building the sales motion, including qualification criteria, close plans, forecast discipline, and HubSpot hygiene.
Providing feedback to SDRs to improve outreach and conversion.
Relaying product feedback with evidence to the product team.