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.
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.
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.
This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Employment type: Full-time
Compensation details were not specified for this role — competitive package expected at a well-funded early-stage company.
| Location | San Francisco, California |
| Website | https://www.getclera.com/ |