Founding Account Executive – Simulation AI Agent

ABOUT THE ROLE We're hiring a Founding Account Executive to own and build a repeatable new-logo sales motion for a category-defining AI simulation agent product. You'll join a small, founder-led team at the ground floor, run full-cycle enterprise sales into large engineering organizations, and turn early wins into the playbook that future sellers will inherit. This is a high-ownership, high-impact role where you'll directly shape go-to-market strategy and feed product feedback loops. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own the full sales cycle — from outbound prospecting through close — for net-new enterprise accounts. - Convert warm, founder-sourced opportunities and inbound interest into closed deals while independently building new pipeline. - Demo the simulation AI agent solo and design technical evaluations that validate value within customer models and workflows. - Navigate complex buying committees, aligning CAE/simulation champions with VP/Director-level economic buyers. - Run targeted account plans against engineering teams that currently use tools such as ANSYS, SIMULIA, Altair, or Simcenter. - Develop qualification criteria, discovery frameworks, evaluation templates, and objection-handling guides that form the foundation of the company's sales playbook. - Feed learnings back to the product team to improve the agent and evolve future sales motions. - Build repeatable processes and documentation that future sales hires will execute against. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR Must-haves (dealbreakers): - 6+ years of full-cycle, outbound-driven hunting in complex, technical B2B deals targeting engineering or manufacturing organizations — with a verifiable track record of sourcing and closing net-new logos against quota. - Ability to run unaided software demos and real technical evaluations with engineering teams — no reliance on a Sales Engineer in the room. - Fluency with AI agents and LLMs; able to articulate concrete engineering value and the practical constraints of agentic workflows in CAE/simulation environments. Required: - Experience owning the complete sales motion: outbound prospecting, discovery, technical evaluation, procurement navigation, and close — without pre-generated pipeline. - Demonstrated ability to sell to CAE/simulation stakeholders and build credible bridges to engineering managers and VP/Director-level buyers in enterprise settings. - Experience building and executing a go-to-market playbook in a founding or early-stage sales environment. - Comfortable with ambiguity — founding-hire temperament with a bias for action and documentation. Nice to have: - Direct experience selling into environments that use ANSYS, SIMULIA, Altair, or Siemens Simcenter — as a vendor rep, reseller, or competitor regularly engaging these tool owners. - Background selling CAD/CAE/PLM/EDA or adjacent deep-tech (dev tools, MLOps, infrastructure) into large enterprises. - Formal background in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering discipline, or strong domain fluency to converse credibly with engineers. - Prior early or founding sales hire experience highly desirable. LOCATION & WORK ARRANGEMENT This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position. COMPENSATION & DETAILS - Employment type: Full-time - Compensation details were not specified for this role — competitive package expected at a well-funded early-stage company.