Founding Account Executive

Scalar•San Francisco, CA

10d•$110,000 - $140,000•Onsite

About The Position

Scalar is seeking its first Account Executive to own deals from first call to signature. This role is crucial for scaling the company's sales efforts beyond the founder's direct involvement. You will be instrumental in building the sales motion, establishing processes, and proving that deals can close without the founder present. This is a unique opportunity to shape how a company sells, working closely with the CEO, a Solutions Engineer, and SDRs. The ideal candidate will have experience selling technical products to technical buyers, a proven track record of closing deals end-to-end, and the ability to build a sales playbook from the ground up. You will inherit live pipeline from the founder and work collaboratively with the Solutions Engineer to manage technical evaluations and POCs. Responsibilities include managing the entire sales cycle, understanding competitive landscapes, navigating enterprise requirements, contributing to pricing and packaging discussions, driving expansion within accounts, and providing valuable product feedback based on customer interactions.

Requirements

Several years of quota-carrying experience in B2B SaaS, closing deals end-to-end, including security reviews, procurement, and redlines.
Experience selling a technical product to a technical buyer, capable of holding a substantive conversation with engineering leaders.
Experience working in an environment without a playbook and building one, or experience as an early representative in a growing team.
Strong writing skills: short, specific, and human.
Ability to be honest about limitations and win future renewals rather than short-term wins.
Comfort with the appeal of learning from the CEO and then being measured on independent success.
Ability to maintain and communicate a credible forecast.
Collaborative approach, prioritizing the right answer over winning an argument, with a high level of kindness.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a developer-tools, API, or infrastructure company selling to engineering teams.
Experience as the first AE at a company, with insights into what could be done differently.
Comfort with technical evaluations, including running POCs, understanding common pitfalls, and knowing when to terminate a POC early.
Fluency with sales tooling such as HubSpot, Apollo, and Clay, with an instinct for automation.
Experience using API documentation and opinions on quality.
Experience selling against incumbents that customers were merely tolerating.

Responsibilities

Own deals from first call through signature, including discovery, technical evaluation, pricing, security review, procurement, and the close.
Inherit and manage live pipeline from the founder, ensuring smooth transitions and no loss of momentum.
Collaborate closely with the Solutions Engineer, acting as a pair to manage the deal around the technical evaluation and POC.
Engage in competitive displacement efforts against existing solutions and homegrown alternatives, ensuring honest and effective communication.
Navigate enterprise requirements such as self-hosting, SSO/SAML, air-gapped deployments, security questionnaires, and procurement cycles.
Participate in pricing and packaging discussions with the founders as the company learns what the product is worth.
Drive expansion of Scalar's services within existing customer organizations.
Contribute to building the sales motion, including qualification criteria, close plans, forecast discipline, and CRM hygiene.
Provide feedback to SDRs to improve outreach and conversion rates based on direct sales experience.
Deliver product feedback with evidence, highlighting objections and gaps encountered during the sales process.