Founding Account Executive

CipherData; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

CipherData is building an AI-native detection and response platform and is launching its founding sales team in the United States. You will own revenue end-to-end, from cold outreach to signed contracts and expansion, reporting to the CEO. This role is for a first-seller at a cybersecurity startup.

You will define the sales motion, target accounts, and proof points, while collaborating with engineers and product teams to drive evaluations and deployments. Remote within the United States.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of quota-carrying, full-cycle B2B software sales to SOC and CISO buyers.
• Proven track record of meeting/exceeding quota with verifiable numbers.
• Experience closing six-figure ACV deals involving multiple stakeholders and security/procurement reviews.
• Deep fluency in SOC buyers' world: SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, MDR, with technical conversation capability without an engineer.
• Proven ability to sell where playbooks and references did not exist, creating them.
• Ownership mindset: first seller at a cybersecurity startup, willing to take equity.
• Willingness to travel within territory.

Responsibilities

• Own revenue for AIDR in the territory end-to-end from first outreach to signed contract and expansion.
• Define segmentation, target accounts, and entry points; build pipeline via outbound and network without an SDR team.
• Lead POVs with security, AI, and product engineers and set success criteria with the customer up front.
• Navigate enterprise sales from SOC practitioner to CISO through procurement, security review, and privacy diligence.
• Land the first use case and expand by increasing usage and data sources; move from AIDR Core to AIDR 360.
• Build the partner ecosystem with MSSP, reseller, and cloud marketplace relationships.
• Stand up the sales system: CRM hygiene, stage definitions, qualification criteria, and a basic playbook.
• Close the loop with product by feeding back losses, objections, and missing capabilities.

Skills

Quota-carrying sales

Full-cycle B2B software sales

SOC/CISO buyer experience

Six-figure ACV deals

Willingness to travel

Job description

CipherData is building the AI-Native Detection and Response (AIDR) platform — a unified platform that delivers continuous risk reduction through SIEM-less detection and closed-loop autonomous response. Legacy SOC tools bolt AI copilots onto outdated architecture. AIDR redefines the entire SOC workflow, much as vibe coding is redefining the traditional SDLC: it autonomously investigates every alert within 5 minutes and delivers 24/7 coverage at the cost of a single analyst. SOC teams stop chasing alerts and start calling the shots.

We are a seed-stage company headquartered in Bellevue, WA, with a subsidiary in Seoul. The team is small and senior — engineers and researchers from Meta, Google DeepMind, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung. AIDR is deployed with paying enterprise customers, is SOC 2 Type 2 attested, and sells through signed reseller partners in Korea. We are now building the sales team that takes it to the North American market.

About the Role

You will own revenue for AIDR in your territory, end to end — from the first cold outreach to the signed contract and the expansion after it — reporting directly to the CEO. Until now every deal has been founder-led. We are hiring our founding sales team: two Account Executives in the United States and one in Korea. There is no territory to inherit, no SDR or sales engineering team behind you, and no playbook to follow. You decide which accounts are worth our time, what the pitch becomes once a CISO pushes back, and what our go-to-market looks like a year from now.

You will spend as much time defining the sales motion — segments, partners, the two or three proof points that move a deal — as running the deals themselves. You will work directly with the CEO, our GTM advisor, your fellow founding AEs, and the security, AI, and product engineers who run evaluations and deployments with you. We are looking for an owner, not a territory operator: someone who wants to build a B2B cybersecurity company's sales function from zero and values the equity that comes with doing it. As we grow, the founding team sets the standard for — and helps hire — the sellers who follow.

If you want a seat where the ceiling is set by what you build, this is that role.

What You'll Do

Own your number: Carry and deliver a quota across new logos and expansion, with full ownership of forecast accuracy.

Build the territory from scratch: Define segmentation, target accounts, and entry points for your territory. Build pipeline through your own outbound and network — there is no SDR team and little inbound yet.

Run technical evaluations: Lead POVs alongside our security, AI, and product engineers — agree success criteria with the customer up front, then hold the evaluation to them.

Navigate the enterprise sale: Drive multi-stakeholder deals from SOC practitioner to CISO, through procurement, security review, and privacy and data-handling diligence.

Land and expand: Land the first use case, then grow the account through usage, additional data sources, and the move from AIDR Core to AIDR 360.

Build the partner ecosystem: Develop the MSSP, reseller, and cloud marketplace relationships that give your territory leverage beyond what you can close directly.

Build the sales system: Stand up the basics we do not have yet — CRM hygiene, stage definitions, qualification criteria, and the first version of the sales playbook.

Close the loop with product: Bring the field signal — losses, objections, missing capability — back to the team with enough specificity to act on.

Our Values

Five principles guide every decision at CipherData. We hire against them and evaluate against them:

Trustworthiness — be trustworthy to all people. Integrity, transparency, and dependability with colleagues, partners, and customers.

Growth Mindset — learn from anything, anyone, anytime. Past experience is data, not dogma. Curiosity over ego; first principles over status quo.

Proactive Ownership — do the right thing for the customer. Customer first, then company, then team, then self. Step beyond your role and hold yourself accountable.

Disagree and Commit — debate when it matters, execute with unity. Challenge high-impact decisions with data and conviction, regardless of title. Once decided, commit fully.

Impact-Driven Execution — ship, learn, iterate. Move fast, take calculated risks, and measure yourself by outcomes, not activity.

Minimum Qualifications

5+ years of quota-carrying, full-cycle B2B software sales — prospecting through close — including direct experience selling cybersecurity products to SOC and CISO buyers

A consistent record of meeting or exceeding quota, with numbers you can speak to in detail — including deals you sourced yourself

Experience personally closing six-figure ACV deals involving multiple stakeholders and a formal security and procurement review

Working fluency in the SOC buyer's world — SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, MDR — and the ability to hold a technical conversation without an engineer in the room

Evidence of 0-to-1 selling: you have sold where the playbook, the collateral, and the reference list did not exist yet, and you built them

An owner's motivation: you want to be a first seller at a cybersecurity startup, build the function, and weigh equity accordingly

Willingness to travel within your territory

Preferred Qualifications

Experience as the first — or one of the first — sellers at a startup, in a new region, or on a new product line

Established CISO and security-leader relationships in your territory's enterprise and mid-market accounts

Experience building or selling through MSSP, reseller, and cloud marketplace channels

Experience selling AI or data platform products into privacy-sensitive or regulated environments

Details

Position: Founding Account Executive

Experience: 5+ years

Reports to: CEO

Employment type: Full-time

Location: Remote within the United States

CipherData is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

CipherData · [e-mail]