Founding Account Executive

Artos AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Artos AI, based in San Francisco, is seeking its first dedicated salesperson to own the full sales cycle for enterprise life sciences accounts and generate new pipeline from inbound and founder-led opportunities.

You will close deals, contribute to pricing and packaging decisions, and help build a scalable sales organization while partnering closely with the founders. This hands-on role requires a builder mindset and readiness to shape a new market category.

Qualifications

• Experience closing complex enterprise deals (ideally $250k+ ACV) with 4–12 month cycles.
• Experience selling into life sciences or regulated industries.
• Proven ability to source own pipeline and forecast accurately.
• CRM discipline and multi-threaded account management.
• Builder mindset with experience creating sales processes, messaging, playbooks, or operating systems.

Responsibilities

• Own the full sales cycle across enterprise and mid-market life sciences accounts.
• Generate your own pipeline while working inbound and founder-generated opportunities.
• Run discovery, product evaluations, business-case development, procurement, negotiation, and close.
• Build credibility with regulatory, medical, scientific, operational, and executive stakeholders.
• Sell a new category to evidence-driven buyers who are skeptical of AI claims.
• Explain total cost, maintenance burden, implementation risk, and speed to value in comparisons.
• Multi-thread relationships across each account so opportunities aren’t dependent on one champion.
• Build and document Artos's sales playbook, including messaging, qualification, objection handling, stage definitions, forecasting, and CRM practices.
• Help shape pricing, packaging, pilot structures, and the transition from founder-led selling to a scalable sales organization.
• Protect customer outcomes by refusing to sell commitments Artos cannot deploy.

Skills

Enterprise sales

Pipeline development

CRM discipline

Consultative selling

Multi-threading

Pricing strategy

Stakeholder management

Lifecycle ownership

Job description

At Artos, we build tools that help biopharma companies create and manage their R&D documentation in a fraction of the time. If you're looking to join a team whose mission is to fundamentally change the way that drug development gets done, we'd love to talk to you.

The Role:

We are hiring Artos's first dedicated salesperson.

This is not a traditional Senior Account Executive role. You will not inherit a mature sales organization, established commission culture, or finished playbook. You will help build them.

The Role Is Approximately

• 60% selling: Own opportunities from pipeline creation through close.
• 25% system-building: Develop the sales process, messaging, qualification standards, and playbook for future hires.
• 15% pricing and strategy: Partner with the founders on pricing, packaging, segmentation, and go-to-market strategy.

We are looking for an architect-minded seller-someone who can close revenue now while building the foundation for Account Executives two, three, and four.

What You'll Do:

• Own the full sales cycle across enterprise and mid-market life sciences accounts.
• Generate your own pipeline while working inbound and founder-generated opportunities.
• Run discovery, product evaluations, business-case development, procurement, negotiation, and close.
• Build credibility with regulatory, medical, scientific, operational, and executive stakeholders.
• Sell a new category to evidence-driven buyers who are appropriately skeptical of AI claims.
• Compete effectively against internal development and consultancy-led alternatives by communicating total cost, maintenance burden, implementation risk, and speed to value.
• Multi-thread relationships across each account so opportunities are not dependent on a single champion.
• Build and document Artos's sales playbook, including messaging, qualification, objection handling, stage definitions, forecasting, and CRM practices.
• Help shape pricing, packaging, pilot structures, and the transition from founder-led selling to a scalable sales organization.
• Protect customer outcomes by refusing to sell commitments Artos cannot successfully deploy.

What We're Looking For:

• Experience personally owning and closing complex enterprise deals, ideally $250,000+ in annual contract value with four- to twelve-month sales cycles.
• Experience selling a new product, category, or technical approach into a skeptical market.
• A track record of personally sourcing pipeline, not only closing opportunities generated by others.
• Experience selling into life sciences, healthcare, or another highly regulated industry.
• Credibility with scientific, regulatory, and risk-conscious buyers.
• A builder’s mindset and evidence that you have created sales processes, messaging, playbooks, or operating systems—not just followed them.
• Strong CRM discipline, honest qualification, and forecasts you can defend.
• Consultative selling skills and the ability to communicate with executives, functional leaders, technical teams, and procurement.
• Multi-threading as a natural part of how you manage accounts.
• Comfort working closely with founders in active sales opportunities.
• Willingness to remain highly hands-on rather than immediately moving into management.

Helpful, But Not Required:

• Experience selling AI, machine learning, data, or other technically complex products.
• Familiarity with regulatory operations, medical writing, clinical, quality, or submission-related workflows.
• Experience selling both enterprise and mid-market offerings.
• Experience as the first or second seller at an early-stage startup.
• Experience hiring or mentoring other sellers.
• An established network within pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies.

Why Artos:

You will have direct influence over revenue, pricing, product strategy, customer experience, and the future sales organization.

This is an opportunity to do more than carry a number. You will help define how Artos brings a new category of technology to life sciences and build the commercial foundation the company will scale from.

Other Information:

Very comfortable working in a fast-paced and intense startup environment

Willing to work in-person in our office in Mission Bay 4-5 days/week

Likes matcha KitKats, believes every LLM prompt is just Schrödinger's cat waiting to be observed, and knows too many random facts about the Mongol postal system