Enterprise Account Executive - Growth (Austin, TX)

Kong; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, empowers enterprises to secure, manage, and monetize API and AI traffic at scale. The role focuses on land-and-expand with large enterprise customers, negotiating complex deals and aligning product and marketing with customer feedback.

Join a fast-moving, multi-functional team and drive global impact across industries while shaping Kong’s go-to-market strategy and customer-obsessed outcomes.

Qualifications

• 5+ years full-cycle closing with enterprise logos and mid-market churn.
• Experience in modern B2B SaaS or infrastructure, APIs, Kubernetes, or observability.
• Able to navigate executive buyers (CTO, VP Eng, CISO) and engineers.
• MEDDPICC or Command of the Message for pipeline and forecast accuracy.
• Consultative selling with problem-solution alignment and demos.
• Strong negotiation and relationship-building under pressure.
• Strategic territory ownership with rigorous account planning.
• Proficient CRM usage and account research before outreach.

Responsibilities

• Own territory, pipeline, and deals from outreach to close.
• Engage with CTOs, VPs, and CISOs to accelerate opportunities.
• Collaborate with SEs, SDRs, and CSMs to advance deals.
• Represent Kong at events and customer meetings.
• Forecast accurately and maintain CRM with current data.

Skills

Enterprise software

B2B SaaS

Multi-persona discovery

MEDDPICC

Consultative selling

Negotiation

Account planning

CRM discipline

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Are you ready to unlock intelligence?

If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.

Why Kong?

Every enterprise building microservices, cloud-native architectures, and generative AI workloads runs on APIs. Kong is the cloud-native API and AI connectivity company, trusted by Fortune 500s and millions of developers worldwide.

If you sell infrastructure, dev tools, or data platforms, you know what developer mindshare is worth. At Kong, you aren’t evangelizing unproven tech from scratch. You’re monetizing an existing open-source groundswell and partnering with enterprise architecture, security, and engineering leaders to power mission‑critical API traffic.

What makes this role high-leverage

• A proven land-and-expand engine: Convert open-source and developer adoption into strategic, multi-year enterprise platform commitments (Kong Konnect, AI Gateway, Service Mesh).

• High-impact deals: Run complex, multi-threaded enterprise cycles (100k–1M+ ACV) across CTO, VP of Platform/Architecture, and CISO personas.

• Modern AI and cloud relevance: Put Kong at the center of the enterprise stack, securing, managing, and routing LLM traffic alongside traditional microservices.

• True cross-functional support: Backed by world-class Solutions Engineers, dedicated SDRs, Customer Success, and an active developer community.

• Full-cycle ownership: Your territory, your pipeline, your deals. You run everything from first outreach through negotiation to close.

• A voice in the product: What you hear from customers goes straight to product and marketing, and it shapes what we build and how we take it to market.

• Visibility: Represent Kong at industry events, conferences, and customer meetings.

What you bring

• Enterprise software track record: 5+ years of full-cycle closing with mid-market and enterprise logos (>1,000 employees), and consistent quota overachievement.

• Ecosystem literacy: Direct experience in modern B2B SaaS or infrastructure, ideally across commercial open source (COSS), developer platforms, cloud/networking, APIs, Kubernetes, or observability.

• Multi-persona discovery: You can work bottoms-up with technical champions (engineers, architects) and top-down with executive economic buyers (CTO, VP Eng, CISO).

• Strategic territory ownership: A disciplined MEDDPICC or Command of the Message approach to pipeline generation, accurate forecasting, and deal execution.

• Consultative selling: You find the customer’s actual problem, tie the solution to a business outcome, and tailor every demo to match.

• Negotiation under pressure: You’re comfortable in high-stakes conversations and build relationships that last past the signature.

• Account planning and CRM discipline: You research accounts and industry trends before you call, and you keep Salesforce (or similar) current enough to forecast from.

• Builder mindset: You thrive in a fast-moving, early-stage environment, take ownership of your territory, and adjust when the market shifts.

Why top sellers join us

• Clear category winner: Gartner Leader with top-tier adoption metrics and continuous product momentum.

• Uncapped upside: Highly competitive base/variable structure, accelerators, and equity.

• Culture of execution: Autonomous, fast-moving, and low on bureaucracy. Built for builders and closers.

About Kong:

Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI‑native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.