Commercial Account Executive

ClickHouse

$225K — $300K *
Enterprise Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Solid technical background with respect in engineering discussions, ideally as a data engineer, solutions engineer, or software engineer.
  • Familiarity with modern data stacks and databases, including tools like ClickHouse, BigQuery, or Snowflake.
  • Some experience in customer-facing roles such as pre-sales or technical account management.
  • Ability to drive urgency in quick sales cycles without coming off as pushy.
  • Strong communication skills, able to distill complex concepts for technical audiences.
  • Curiosity about business motivations behind technology purchases.
  • Autonomous decision-making with an ownership mentality.

Responsibilities

  • Own the complete sales cycle for accounts with fewer than 250 employees, focusing on technical depth and speed.
  • Engage with technical teams to understand their specific requirements and challenges.
  • Provide technical guidance during the sales process, acting as a consultant rather than a traditional sales rep.
  • Identify existing customer growth opportunities based on usage patterns and engagement.
  • Collaborate with Solutions Engineers for complex evaluations and internal advocacy for customer needs.
  • Maintain detailed records of interactions, decisions, and follow-ups in Salesforce.
  • Contribute to team resources like technical guides and playbooks that facilitate scaling operations.
  • Participate in community events and forums relevant to the developer audience.

Benefits

  • Flexible work environment with remote opportunities across 20+ countries.
  • Healthcare contributions from the employer.
  • Equity options for all new hires within the company.
  • Generous flexible time off policy, tailored for different regions.
  • $500 budget for home office setup for remote employees.
  • Opportunities for in-person connections through global company gatherings.
Full Job Description
The Role

Our commercial segment - companies with up to 250 employees - is predominantly developer- and engineer-led. These buyers don't respond to decks and discovery scripts. They respond to someone who speaks their language, understands their architecture, and can help them think through a real problem. That's who we're hiring.

As a Commercial Account Executive at ClickHouse, you'll own the full sales cycle for inbound, product-led, and self-serve accounts in this segment. You'll engage with data engineers, platform teams, and technical founders at the moment they're evaluating ClickHouse for a real use case - and your job is to help them succeed, faster. The best deals in this segment don't feel like sales. They feel like an engineering consultation that ends in a contract.

Our commercial customers include companies like Circle, Flashbots, Blockworks, Cypress.io, Kit, Whop, Coframe, Shaped, and janitorai - developer-first products that chose ClickHouse because they needed something that could handle billions of events without slowing down their users. The best deals in this segment don't feel like sales. They feel like an engineering consultation that ends in a contract.

This is a role for technically strong people who are ready to own a number. Prior closing experience is not required - but technical credibility is non-negotiable.
What You Will Be Doing
  • Own the full sales cycle from inbound lead to close for accounts in the sub-250 employee segment, with a focus on speed, technical depth, and conversion quality.
  • Engage directly with data engineers, platform architects, and technical founders to understand their use cases, data volumes, query patterns, and infrastructure requirements - and map those to ClickHouse capabilities.
  • Troubleshoot schema design questions, ingestion patterns, and integration challenges during the evaluation process; serve as a trusted technical advisor rather than a traditional sales rep.
  • Identify expansion opportunities within the existing self-serve and product-led customer base; convert usage signals into meaningful commercial relationships.
  • Partner with Solutions Engineers on more complex evaluations, and advocate for customer needs internally with Product and Engineering.
  • Maintain rigorous pipeline hygiene - documenting technical context, decision criteria, stakeholders, and next steps in Salesforce so nothing falls through the cracks.
  • Contribute to playbooks, technical objection handling guides, and onboarding materials that help the team scale what's working.
  • Participate in developer community events, technical meetups, and online forums where our users naturally gather.
What You Bring
  • A technical foundation that earns respect in engineering conversations - built through experience as a data engineer, solutions engineer/architect, software engineer, or similar role.
  • Comfort with the modern data stack: columnar databases, streaming ingestion (Kafka, Kinesis), cloud infrastructure, and SQL-heavy analytics workflows. Hands-on experience with ClickHouse, DuckDB, Druid, Pinot, BigQuery, Snowflake, or similar is a strong plus.
  • Some customer-facing experience - whether in pre-sales, technical account management, solutions engineering, or a customer-success capacity. You've navigated technical conversations with real stakes before.
  • An instinct for moving quickly. This segment runs on short cycles. You know how to drive urgency without being pushy, and how to remove technical blockers that stall deals.
  • Strong written and verbal communication. You can simplify complex concepts without dumbing them down, and you write clearly enough that your emails actually get responses from engineers.
  • Curiosity about the business side of technology. You're interested in understanding why companies buy, not just what they're building.
  • Ownership mentality. You're comfortable operating with autonomy, making judgment calls without a playbook, and learning from what doesn't work.
Why This Role Is Different

Most AE roles are execution roles. This one is a craft role. You'll build deep product knowledge, learn how high-growth companies architect for scale, and develop commercial skills in an environment where your technical instincts are your biggest competitive advantage. For the right person, this is a rare opportunity to bridge two worlds - and get paid competitively to do it.

The typical starting salary for this role in the US is

$225,000-$275,000 USD

The typical starting salary for this role in US Premium Markets is

$250,000-$300,000 USD

Compensation

For roles based in the United States, the typical starting salary range for this position is listed above. In certain locations, such as the San Francisco Bay Area and the New York City Metro Area, a premium market range may apply, as listed.

These salary ranges reflect what we reasonably and in good faith believe to be the minimum and maximum pay for this role at the time of posting. The actual compensation may be higher or lower than the amounts listed, and the ranges may be subject to future adjustments.

An individual's placement within the range will depend on various factors, including (but not limited to) education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, location, performance, and the needs of the business or organization.

If you have any questions or comments about compensation as a candidate, please get in touch with us at [redacted].
Perks
  • Flexible work environment - ClickHouse is a globally distributed company and remote-friendly. We currently operate in over 20 countries.
  • Healthcare - Employer contributions towards your healthcare.
  • Equity in the company - Every new team member who joins our company receives stock options.
  • Time off - Flexible time off in the US, generous entitlement in other countries.
  • A $500 Home office setup if you're a remote employee.
  • Global Gatherings - We believe in the power of in-person connection and offer opportunities to engage with colleagues at company-wide offsites.

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