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Founding Account Executive - Simulation Agent

CleraSan Francisco🇺🇸United StatesPosted 14 Sept 2026

Why This Role Stands Out

As a Founding Account Executive, you'll shape the future of AI simulation technology by owning the entire sales cycle and influencing go-to-market strategy. This role is ideal for an experienced B2B sales professional who thrives on building processes and making a significant impact in a dynamic, early-stage environment. Apply now to be a foundational part of this innovative company and drive category-defining growth.

Quick Overview

Seniority
Mid Senior
Employment type
Full Time
Location
San Francisco, United States
Posted
Yesterday
ANSYSMLOpsCADConcreteProspectingSourcing

Job Description

About the Role

This is a founding sales hire on a small, founder-led team building a category-defining AI simulation agent for hardware engineering organizations. You will own the full new-logo sales motion end-to-end, converting early opportunities into closed deals while simultaneously writing the playbook that future sellers will inherit. The role carries outsized influence over both go-to-market strategy and product direction.

What You'll Do

  • Own the complete sales cycle from outbound prospecting through close for net-new accounts, without SDR or BDR support.

  • Convert founder-sourced warm opportunities and inbound interest into revenue while independently building new pipeline.

  • Demo the simulation agent solo and design technical evaluations that validate value directly inside customer models and workflows.

  • Navigate complex buying committees, aligning CAE and simulation champions to VP- and Director-level economic buyers.

  • Run targeted account plans against engineering teams that currently use tools such as ANSYS, SIMULIA, Altair, or Simcenter.

  • Build qualification criteria, discovery frameworks, evaluation templates, and objection-handling guides that form the company playbook.

  • Feed deal learnings back to the product team to sharpen the agent and future sales motions.

  • Document repeatable processes and hand them off as a foundation for future sales hires.

What We're Looking For

  • 6+ years of full-cycle hunting in complex, technical B2B deals into engineering or manufacturing organizations, with a verifiable track record of sourcing and closing net-new logos.

  • At least half of quota history coming from net-new logo acquisition rather than renewals or expansion.

  • Proven ability to run unaided software demos and real technical evaluations with engineering teams, without relying on a solutions engineer.

  • Fluency with AI agents and LLMs, and the ability to explain practical agentic workflows and translate them into concrete engineering value.

  • Direct experience selling into environments that use ANSYS, SIMULIA, Altair, or Siemens Simcenter, whether as a vendor rep, reseller, or competing seller.

  • Background selling CAD, CAE, PLM, EDA, or adjacent deep-tech (dev tools, MLOps, infrastructure) into large enterprises, with strong domain fluency.

  • Founding or early-stage sales hire experience, including building a go-to-market motion from scratch under ambiguous, high-pressure conditions.

  • Comfort operating without an established playbook, support structure, or consistent lead flow.

  • Background in mechanical, aerospace, or a related engineering discipline is a plus, as is experience at a major engineering-software vendor.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California. Visa sponsorship is not available.

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