Founding Account Executive
Content + Source + Freshness • 12 Dec 2025 • 95% confidence
Offer value
High value position offering robust potential for career advancement within a growing AI-focused startup, coupled with significant financial rewards.
- Competitive compensation: $125,000–$252,500 + commission
- Significant influence on company's sales trajectories
- Potential for rapid advancement into leadership roles
- Requires proven skills in managing complex sales cycles
Pros
- Compensation including a base salary of $125,000–$252,500 plus commission, depending on performance
- Key role in shaping the go-to-market strategy of a startup
- Opportunity for leadership growth as company scales
Cons
- Expectations for multitasking may lead to stress
- Role entails high responsibility for new business acquisition
- May require long hours during initial growth phases
Who it's for
Mid to Senior level • Onsite in San Francisco
Good fit
- Seasoned sales professionals with SaaS experience
- Individuals ready to take charge of their career path
- Entrepreneurs looking for fast-paced startup opportunities
Not recommended for
- Those desiring a predictable work structure
- Candidates without prior sales success
- Individuals uncomfortable with remote work dynamics
Motivation fit
Key skills
About the job
💥 Your Impact
At Onyx, we’re building the connective tissue between generative AI and the modern workplace, unlocking company-specific knowledge and making AI truly useful at work. We’re fortunate to have incredible customers using Onyx every day and inbound interest from world-class brands landing in our inbox weekly. Now, we’re ready to scale what’s working and go even bigger.
As our first Account Executive, you won’t just sell, you’ll help build our entire GTM engine. From refining our sales playbook to helping us define how we grow, your fingerprints will be all over our next chapter. There’s real opportunity here to grow into sales leadership as we scale.
💡 About the Role
You’ll be the tip of the spear for our GTM efforts, working across the entire sales funnel while partnering closely with our founders and technical team. This is a high-ownership, high-impact role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, loves to build from scratch, and wants to shape how great sales is done at a startup.
In this role, you will:
- Own the Full Sales Cycle : Run discovery calls, product demos, pricing discussions, proof-of-concepts (POCs), and close deals end-to-end.
- Generate Pipeline : Work inbound leads while also building pipeline through outbound prospecting and creative channels.
- Navigate Complex Deals : Partner with prospects to handle security reviews, legal redlines, and procurement processes.
- Collaborate Cross-Functionally : Partner with engineering and product to ensure a smooth POC experience and customer handoff.
- Refine Our Sales Playbook : Track pipeline, update CRM, build forecasts, and help codify our most effective sales motions.
🚀 You’ll be successful if you…
- Have 5+ years of experience in mid-market or enterprise software sales, ideally at a B2B SaaS company.
- Have experience owning complex deals end-to-end, working with both technical stakeholders and executive buyers.
- Thrive in early-stage environments where you wear multiple hats and create structure as you go.
- Are a self-starter who doesn’t wait for someone to tell you what to do; you figure it out and make it better.
- Know how to prioritize, forecast, and manage pipeline like a pro.
- Bring curiosity, creativity, and grit to every step of the sales process.
⭐ Bonus Points
- You’ve worked at an early-stage startup and helped build GTM motions from the ground up.
- You’ve sold a technical product with a lot of surface area, think APIs, platforms, or deep integrations.
- You’ve sold SaaS productivity or knowledge management tools and understand that buyer ecosystem.
- You’re excited about AI, obsessed with product, and passionate about making work more seamless and intelligent.
Compensation
Base salary + commission (15% of new ARR closed, with accelerators up to 22.5% for over-quota performance)
