Account Executive, Frontier AI

Clera

$360K — $400K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3+ years in technical sales with complex deals management from start to finish.
  • Experience selling into or working within AI labs and similar research organizations.
  • Understanding of training and evaluation of modern AI models with relevant methodologies.
  • Capability to independently map account structures and develop engagement strategies.
  • Proficiency in structuring enterprise deals, including licensing and data agreements.
  • Ability to thrive in unstructured, early-stage environments where product direction is evolving.
  • Experience as an early commercial hire in seed or Series A startups is a plus.
  • Strong network within frontier AI research labs is beneficial.
  • Background in industries like healthcare, robotics, or engineered autonomy is preferred.

Responsibilities

  • Engage with researchers to identify reasoning gaps your product can solve.
  • Develop comprehensive account plans for targeted research labs.
  • Conduct technical discussions to gather insights for product development.
  • Negotiate enterprise contracts and manage pricing strategies.
  • Provide intelligence on competition to inform product roadmaps.
  • Collaborate with technical experts to maintain credibility with clients.
  • Create and establish a sales playbook from scratch.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to shape and influence product direction directly.
  • Engagement with cutting-edge AI/ML technology and research.
  • Chance to establish yourself in a founding sales position with a startup.
  • Collaboration with top-tier professionals in AI and ML fields.
  • High level of autonomy in role and decision-making processes.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a founding sales role at an early-stage AI/ML company, where you will own commercial relationships with frontier research labs and applied AI teams across healthcare, robotics, and language model development. You will build the sales motion from the ground up, sitting at the intersection of product, customer discovery, and strategy, directly shaping what gets built based on what labs actually need.
What You'll Do
  • Identify and engage the researchers and data leads inside target organizations who have reasoning gaps your product can close.
  • Build and own account plans for a defined set of labs, mapping buyers, evaluation bottlenecks, and post-training challenges.
  • Run technical discovery conversations with research and data leadership, translating findings into product requirements.
  • Structure and negotiate enterprise engagements, licensing arrangements, and data agreements, owning pricing strategy and deal shape.
  • Bring competitive and demand intelligence back into the company to inform roadmap decisions.
  • Collaborate with expert networks to maintain technical credibility with deeply technical buyers.
  • Create the sales playbook itself, with no existing motion to follow.
What We're Looking For
  • 3 or more years selling technical products to technical buyers, with demonstrated ownership of complex deals from start to close.
  • Direct experience selling to or working inside AI labs, robotics companies, data infrastructure firms, or research organizations.
  • Fluency in how modern models are trained and evaluated, including post-training, evaluation design, and reward signal design.
  • Proven ability to build account plans, map organizational structures, and define engagement strategies independently.
  • Experience structuring enterprise deals including licensing arrangements, data agreements, and pricing strategy.
  • Comfort operating with minimal process in early-stage environments where the product is still being defined.
  • Prior experience as an early commercial hire at a seed or Series A stage company.
  • Existing relationships with research or data teams at frontier AI labs is a strong plus.
  • Background in healthcare, life sciences, regulated environments, robotics, autonomy, or embodied AI is a strong plus.
Compensation & Benefits

The on-target earnings range for this role is $360,000 to $400,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Location

Primary location is San Francisco, California. Remote candidates based in the United States will also be considered.

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Clera

  • Operations Lead
    $180K — $220K *
    New York, NY 10025 (New York County)
    Finance & Insurance
    In-Person
  • Account Executive
    $200K — $400K *
    New York, NY 10025 (New York County)
    Enterprise Technology
    In-Person
  • Senior Product Manager, Banking
    $160K — $180K *
    New York, NY 10025 (New York County)
    Finance & Insurance
    In-Person
  • Founding Engineer
    $156K — $182K *
    New York, NY 10025 (New York County)
    Finance & Insurance
    In-Person
  • Senior Agent Product Manager
    $125K — $150K *
    Los Angeles, CA 90011 (Los Angeles County)
    Finance & Insurance
    In-Person

More Consumer Technology Jobs

Find similar Account Executive, Frontier AI jobs: