SMB Account Executive

Zendesk•Austin, TX

6d•$111,000 - $167,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The SMB Account Executive is a hunter focused on creating and closing durable net-new business. The role converts priority prospects into customers through disciplined prospecting, consultative discovery, evidence-based value cases, executive selling, commercial judgment, and a clean transition to the post-sale account team. It does not own installed-base expansion or post-sale commercial outcomes. The position involves developing qualified net-new pipeline, guiding prospects from discovery through contracting and close, and translating customer priorities and service-operation challenges into a credible Zendesk platform and AI value proposition. The Account Executive builds alignment across business and technical stakeholders, owns deal strategy and negotiation within approved guardrails, and coordinates internal and external partners to improve win probability. The role also maintains accurate CRM and forecasting practices, documents customer goals and success conditions for handoffs, and shares market and buyer insights to improve go-to-market efforts. The successful candidate brings demonstrated B2B SaaS new-business selling experience, prospecting discipline, executive engagement, commercial acumen, and evidence of customer or commercial impact. They should be able to discuss AI, automation, customer experience, and platform value credibly, use approved AI tools responsibly, and frame AI opportunities around measurable outcomes, adoption, risk, security, governance, and implementation readiness. Zendesk describes deeper platform and service-operations fluency, partner-led selling, and complex deal strategy as areas that can be developed. The role is hybrid, requiring attendance at a local office for part of the week; the schedule is determined by the hiring manager.

Requirements

Typically 8–12 years of related experience (Job Architecture baseline).
Demonstrated capability in complex B2B SaaS new-business selling, value-based discovery, and commercial deal ownership.
Demonstrated ownership of outcomes, with evidence of sound decision-making, follow-through, and measurable customer or commercial impact.
Evidence of prospecting discipline, quota attainment or equivalent growth results, executive engagement, and complex deal judgment.
Ability to discuss AI, automation, service operations, and platform value credibly and recognize when specialist depth is required.
Genuine new-business orientation and targeted prospecting discipline, including the ability to create qualified demand rather than only work inbound leads.
Consultative discovery skills to uncover business problems, urgency, stakeholders, decision criteria, and measurable outcomes before positioning a product.
Executive and multi-threaded selling ability to build trust with business, technical, financial, security, and procurement stakeholders.
Commercial acumen to build ROI narratives, manage deal economics, negotiate thoughtfully, and qualify out when the fit is not credible.
CRM, forecasting, and operating discipline, including inspecting facts, surfacing risk early, and maintaining mutual accountability.
Ability to frame AI opportunities in terms of measurable outcomes, operating-model change, adoption risk, security, governance, and implementation readiness.
Ability to use approved AI tools responsibly while protecting customer confidentiality and data.
No specific educational credential is required where equivalent demonstrated experience, capability, and track record are present.

Nice To Haves

Deeper Zendesk platform, AI, and service-operations fluency.
More advanced industry narratives, partner-led selling, and complex deal strategy.
Ability to shape a customer's problem, create demand where none exists, and mobilize a buying committee without overselling.
Repeated success closing large, complex net-new deals with executive access, competitive strategy, and strong business-case construction.

Responsibilities

Create and maintain enough qualified net-new pipeline to meet or exceed quota through targeted outbound prospecting, inbound conversion, partner routes, and disciplined territory planning.
Lead a repeatable prospecting-to-close process, including discovery, qualification, value mapping, mutual action planning, business-case development, negotiation, contracting, and close.
Translate customer business priorities, service-operation challenges, and transformation goals into a credible Zendesk platform and AI value proposition.
Build executive and multi-threaded alignment across business, technology, security, finance, procurement, and the economic buying committee.
Own commercial strategy, deal progression, and negotiation within approved guardrails while protecting customer value and delivery credibility.
Coordinate Solution Engineers, Product Specialists, Marketing, SDR/BDR partners, ecosystem partners, and leadership to improve win probability.
Maintain accurate CRM data, pipeline health, forecast discipline, and early visibility into risk; base decisions on evidence.
Document customer goals, stakeholders, use cases, commitments, and success conditions to support a clean handoff.
Share market, competitor, and buyer insights to improve the go-to-market motion.
Discuss AI, automation, CX, and platform value at the business level, involving specialists when deeper technical validation is needed.
Frame AI opportunities around measurable customer outcomes, operating-model change, adoption risk, security, governance, and implementation readiness.
Use approved AI tools to improve account research, preparation, follow-through, and signal synthesis while protecting customer confidentiality and data.
Distinguish uniquely human work, including trust, judgment, negotiation, and executive alignment, from work that can be augmented or automated.
Use market and customer insight to refine AI narratives, objection handling, and priority use cases without overstating product capability.