Founding Account Executive

HartleyCo; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful equity

Job summary

HartleyCo, a YC-backed AI infrastructure startup in San Francisco, seeks its first dedicated Account Executive. You will work directly with the CEO to build the commercial engine from the ground up and shape how the company sells as it scales.

You will own the entire sales cycle—from outreach to contract—selling to AI engineers, technical founders, and enterprise buyers. This is a rare chance to define and own a repeatable sales motion at a fast-growing company.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of full-cycle B2B SaaS sales experience.
• A proven track record of generating your own pipeline.
• Comfortable selling highly technical products to engineering teams.
• Thrives in early-stage, high-ownership environments where ambiguity is the norm.
• Experience selling AI infrastructure, developer tools, cloud platforms, observability, cybersecurity or technical SaaS products is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Build your own pipeline from scratch.
• Run complex enterprise sales cycles from first outreach through to signed contract.
• Sell to AI engineers, technical founders and enterprise buyers.
• Lead discovery, demos, POCs, procurement and commercial negotiations.
• Work closely with engineering and product to shape how customers adopt the platform.
• Help build a repeatable sales motion as the business scales.

Skills

Full-cycle sales

Pipeline generation

Enterprise sales

Technical selling

Stakeholder management

Job description

Most Account Executive roles involve joining an existing sales team.

This isn't one of them.

I'm working with a YC-backed AI infrastructure startup that's already working with Fortune 500 customers and has raised a $4M Seed round from some of the best investors in Silicon Valley.

They're looking for their first dedicated Account Executive.

You’ll work directly with the CEO to build the commercial engine from the ground up. There isn't a mature playbook waiting for you. You'll help create it.

This is the type of opportunity where the right person doesn't just close deals. They define how the company sells for years to come.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Building your own pipeline from scratch
• Running complex enterprise sales cycles from first outreach through to signed contract
• Selling to AI engineers, technical founders and enterprise buyers
• Leading discovery, demos, POCs, procurement and commercial negotiations
• Working closely with engineering and product to shape how customers adopt the platform
• Helping build a repeatable sales motion as the business scales

What They’re Looking For

• 3+ years of full-cycle B2B SaaS sales experience
• A proven track record of generating your own pipeline
• Comfortable selling highly technical products to engineering teams
• Thrives in early-stage, high-ownership environments where ambiguity is the norm
• Experience selling AI infrastructure, developer tools, cloud platforms, observability, cybersecurity or technical SaaS products is highly desirable.

Why This Opportunity?

• First dedicated commercial hire
• Meaningful equity
• Direct access to the founders
• Fortune 500 customers already live
• One of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise AI
• Genuine opportunity to become the commercial leader as the company scales

If you've been looking for a chance to build something rather than inherit it, I'd love to speak with you.