Founding Account Executive - Education Products

Brightwheel; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Brightwheel is seeking a Founding Account Executive, Education to help build and scale the sales engine for our education product portfolio. You will create the playbook, identify high-potential customers, and lead efforts to establish a repeatable GTM motion.

You’ll own the full sales cycle—from prospecting and discovery to demo, proposal, negotiation, and close—while shaping messaging and strategy with cross‑functional partners in Product, Marketing, and Strategy.

Qualifications

• Built pipeline or created new markets/segments, launched new products, or helped establish a sales motion where a mature playbook did not yet exist.
• Created your own pipeline through prospecting and generating meaningful opportunities without relying on inbound demand.
• Thrived in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with initiative and ownership.
• Demonstrated exceptional discovery and communication skills to uncover customer problems and articulate value.
• Turned customer conversations into insights to influence sales strategy, product, and GTM.

Responsibilities

• Build the sales engine: collaborate with leadership to develop go-to-market motion for education products, including target customers, personas, positioning, messaging, qualification, and sales process.
• Own the full sales cycle: lead opportunities from prospecting through close, building relationships with education leaders and decision-makers.
• Create and grow pipeline: identify high-potential customers via outbound prospecting, referrals, events, and experiments, turning learnings into scalable practices.
• Become an expert on customers and market: understand education leaders, their challenges, buying processes, and priorities.
• Shape product and GTM strategy: bring market insights to Product, Marketing, and leadership to influence roadmap and go-to-market.
• Build foundation for scale: establish a high bar for sales excellence and develop playbooks and collateral for future sellers.

Job description

Our Mission and Opportunity

Early education is one of the most important determinants of childhood outcomes, a critical support for working families, and a $175B market that remains underserved by modern technology. Brightwheel is the largest, fastest growing, and most loved platform in early ed, trusted by millions of educators and families every day. We are a three-time Cloud 100 company, backed by top investors including Addition, Bessemer, Emerson Collective, Lowercase Capital, Notable Capital, and Mark Cuban.

Our Team

Our team is passionate, talented, and customer-focused. We embody our Leadership Principles in our work and culture. We are a distributed team with remote employees across every US time zone, as well as select offices in the US and internationally.

Who You Are

Brightwheel is seeking a Founding Account Executive, Education to help build and scale the sales engine for our growing portfolio of education products. This is a unique opportunity for an entrepreneurial seller who wants to do more than inherit a territory and execute an established playbook—you’ll help create the playbook.

You’ll be on the front lines of determining how we win: identifying our highest-potential customers, building pipeline, refining our positioning and messaging, closing early customers, and translating what we learn into a repeatable go-to-market motion. You’ll work closely with leaders across Sales, Product, Marketing, and Strategy, with your insights directly influencing how we evolve our products and go‑to‑market approach.

The ideal candidate combines the instincts and discipline of an exceptional seller with the curiosity, resourcefulness, and ownership mentality of a builder. You thrive in ambiguity, learn quickly, are energized by creating something from the ground up, and want to look back and say, “I helped build that.”

What You’ll Do

• Build the sales engine. Partner closely with leadership to develop and continuously refine our go‑to‑market motion for education products, including target customers, buyer personas, positioning, messaging, qualification, and sales process.

• Own the full sales cycle. Lead opportunities from initial prospecting and discovery through demonstration, proposal, negotiation, and close, building trusted relationships with education leaders and key decision‑makers along the way.

• Create and grow pipeline. Proactively identify and engage high‑potential customers through thoughtful outbound prospecting, relationships, referrals, events, and creative experimentation. Determine which approaches generate repeatable results and turn those learnings into scalable practices.

• Become an expert on our customers and market. Develop a deep understanding of education leaders, their challenges, buying processes, and priorities. Identify patterns across customer conversations to sharpen our understanding of where we win and why.

• Shape our product and GTM strategy. Serve as a critical voice of the market, bringing structured insights from prospects, customers, wins, losses, and objections back to Product, Marketing, and leadership to influence our roadmap and go‑to‑market strategy.

• Build the foundation for scale. Establish a high bar for sales excellence and turn early learnings into the processes, messaging, collateral, and playbooks that will enable future sellers to ramp quickly and successfully.

What You’ve Done

• Built rather than simply inherited. You have experience creating pipeline, developing new markets or segments, launching new products, or helping establish a sales motion where a mature playbook did not yet exist.

• Created your own pipeline. You are comfortable prospecting and have demonstrated the ability to generate meaningful opportunities without relying exclusively on inbound demand or SDR support.

• Thrived in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments. You are highly resourceful, learn quickly, seek feedback, test new approaches, and take ownership for results rather than waiting for perfect information or infrastructure.

• Demonstrated exceptional discovery and communication skills. You can uncover complex customer problems, synthesize what you’re hearing, articulate a compelling value proposition, and establish credibility with senior leaders.

• Turned customer conversations into insights. You naturally identify patterns across prospects and deals and can translate those learnings into recommendations for sales strategy, positioning, product, and the broader business.

Experience selling into education is valuable, but a builder mentality, exceptional sales fundamentals, learning agility, and a demonstrated ability to create something from the ground up are most important for success in this role.

Brightwheel is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment and is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.