Strategic Account Executive San Francisco

FriendliAI Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary + uncapped per

Equity

Benefits package

Exposure to cutting-edge AI tech

Job summary

FriendliAI is seeking a Strategic Account Executive to drive market expansion by winning high-value enterprise accounts and building strategic relationships with AI-forward companies. You will lead deals focused on AI inference and serving solutions, delivering cost savings and performance gains across deployments.

In this role, you will own the full sales cycle, manage technical POCs, and collaborate with engineering and leadership to position FriendliAI as the trusted partner for scalable AI

Qualifications

• 5+ years of B2B enterprise sales experience.
• Track record of closing 300K+ ARR deals and meeting revenue targets.
• Experience selling AI inference, GPU compute, cloud or bare-metal infrastructure.
• Strong technical background in AI/ML infrastructure or developer tools.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end sales process for enterprise AI infrastructure deals.
• Identify growth opportunities within accounts and act as trusted advisor.
• Build strategic relationships with CTOs and technical leaders.
• Manage technical POCs with internal teams and clients.
• Generate and manage a robust enterprise pipeline.
• Represent the company at AI/ML conferences and meetups.
• Collaborate with product teams to align roadmap with market needs.

Skills

Enterprise sales

C-level engagement

POC management

Technical communication

Education

Technical degree or equivalent experience

Tools

AI infrastructure

Cloud platforms

GPU compute

Job description

As a Strategic Account Executive at FriendliAI, you will be instrumental in driving our market expansion by securing high-value enterprise accounts and building strategic relationships with leading AI-forward companies. You'll focus on helping enterprises leverage FriendliAI's inference serving platform to achieve transformative cost savings and performance improvements across their AI deployments.

Environments

• Highly competitive base salary plus uncapped commission structure tied to enterprise deal value

• Equity in a rapidly growing AI infrastructure company

• Comprehensive benefits package

• Collaborative environment with exposure to cutting-edge AI technologies

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end sales process with enterprises, from generating pipeline to closing high-value, strategic enterprise deals focused on AI inference and serving solutions

• Identify and capitalize on growth opportunities within existing accounts, becoming a trusted advisor for AI infrastructure optimization

• Build and maintain strategic relationships with CTOs, engineering leaders, ML/AI leaders, and other technical decision-makers at target enterprises.

• Manage technical POCs that demonstrate FriendliAI's superior performance and cost advantages, collaborating with internal engineering teams and enterprise clients

• Consistently generate and manage a robust pipeline by identifying enterprises with significant inference workloads and positioning FriendliAI's solutions strategically

• Lead tech community engagements, representing FriendliAI at premier AI/ML conferences, meetups, and industry events (AI Engineer World's Fair, AWS re:Invent, etc.)

• Cultivate strategic relationships with AI engineers, ML platform leaders, and technical decision-makers at target enterprises through community involvement

• Organize technical events; workshops, technical demos, and meetups showcasing FriendliAI

• Collaborate on technical content, case studies, and speaking opportunities that establish FriendliAI's market leadership

• Bring the voice of enterprise customers into product discussions, ensuring FriendliAI's roadmap aligns with market needs and competitive positioning

• Work closely with engineering teams to understand and articulate complex technical differentiators around inference optimization

• Analyze the competitive landscape and provide insights on enterprise AI infrastructure trends and requirements

Qualifications

• 5+ years of B2B enterprise sales experience

• Proven track record of closing $300K+ ARR deals and consistently exceeding revenue targets

• Experience selling AI inference, GPU compute, cloud infrastructure, bare-metal infrastructure, or other technical AI infrastructure solutions

• Strong technical background in AI/ML infrastructure, cloud platforms, compute, or developer tools

• Deep understanding of LLM deployment, inference serving, and AI/ML workflows

• Active participation in AI/ML tech communities with demonstrated networking abilities

• Experience managing technical POCs and multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles

• Excellent communication skills for engaging both C-level executives and technical teams

Preferred Experience

• AI inference, AI infrastructure, MLOps, cloud compute, bare-metal infrastructure, or developer tools company background

• Existing network within enterprise AI/ML, engineering, or infrastructure teams

• Technical degree or equivalent practical experience in AI/ML space

• Track record of organizing or speaking at tech meetups and industry conferences

About us

FriendliAI, a San Mateo, CA-based startup, is building the next-generation AI inference platform that accelerates the deployment of large language and multimodal models with unmatched performance and efficiency. Our infrastructure supports high-throughput, low-latency AI workloads for organizations worldwide. We are also integrated with the Hugging Face platform, allowing instant access to over 600,000 open-source models. We are on a mission to deliver the world's best platform for AI inference