# Startups Lead

**Company:** [Blacksmith](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/blacksmith)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Account Executive
**Salary:** $180k – $200k/yr
**Experience:** 2+ years
**Skills:** Sales, Partnerships, Developer Tools, Cloud Services, Technical Saas, CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud Economics, Outbound Prospecting, Pipeline Generation, Technical Discovery, Product-Led Growth, Usage-Based Businesses, Startup Ecosystems
**Posted:** 2026-08-14

> Owns new business across venture-backed startups, especially YC companies, by building ecosystem relationships, generating pipeline, and closing technical sales. The role requires quota-carrying sales or partnerships experience, startup fluency, and comfort selling to founders and engineering leaders.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities

### Own the Startup Ecosystem
- Build and own a territory of high-growth, venture-backed startups.
- Develop relationships across the YC ecosystem and broader startup community.
- Identify promising companies early and build relationships before infrastructure decisions are made.
- Become a trusted resource for founders and engineering leaders evaluating CI, developer infrastructure, and engineering scale.

### Build Pipeline
- Generate pipeline through targeted outbound, referrals, events, founder networks, VC relationships, and creative prospecting.
- Use funding, hiring, GitHub activity, engineering growth, product adoption, and other signals to identify startups at the right moment.
- Build relationships with accelerators, investors, founders, and other ecosystem influencers.
- Develop creative approaches to engage high-potential companies.

### Win and Grow Customers
- Work with founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, and developers to understand infrastructure and development workflows.
- Help startups evaluate and adopt Blacksmith.
- Run fast, lightweight sales cycles.
- Identify companies with potential to become significant customers as they scale.
- Build relationships that can grow from an initial team into company-wide adoption.

### Sell a Technical Product
- Develop expertise in CI/CD, GitHub Actions, cloud infrastructure, developer workflows, and cloud economics.
- Partner with Solutions Engineers on technical discovery and evaluations.
- Understand how startups build and ship software and identify opportunities to improve developer velocity.
- Translate improvements in speed, reliability, and infrastructure cost into clear value propositions.

### Build the Startup GTM Motion
- Develop a point of view on how Blacksmith should win the startup market.
- Shape YC, accelerator, and venture ecosystem programs.
- Identify patterns across fast-growing customers and turn them into repeatable acquisition plays.
- Bring founder and developer feedback to product and engineering.
- Experiment, measure results, and scale effective motions.

## Requirements

- 2+ years of quota-carrying sales or partnerships experience, ideally in developer tools, infrastructure, cloud services, or technical SaaS.
- Understanding of startup operations and how founders and engineering leaders make buying decisions.
- Hunter mindset with the ability to open doors, build relationships, and win new logos.
- Strong instincts for identifying promising companies and engaging early.
- Ability to manage a high volume of opportunities without sacrificing follow-through or customer experience.
- Comfort selling directly to founders, CTOs, and engineers.
- Technical curiosity and willingness to understand how the product works.
- Ability to move quickly without relying on lengthy enterprise sales processes.
- Creative approach to pipeline generation beyond sequences and cold outbound.
- Interest in building a sales motion rather than inheriting one.

## Nice-to-Haves

- Experience at an early-stage startup.
- Existing network across YC, venture-backed startups, founders, or investors.
- Experience selling to Seed through Series B companies.
- Experience building startup, emerging, or SMB sales motions.
- Understanding of GitHub Actions, CI/CD, developer infrastructure, or cloud economics.
- Experience with product-led or usage-based businesses.
- Active involvement in the startup community.
- Experience building a territory, community, or ecosystem from scratch.

## Compensation & Benefits

- Competitive base salary and uncapped commission.
- Meaningful equity.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
- 401(k) match.
- Unlimited PTO.
- Early-exercise stock options.
- 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave in the U.S.
- Annual company offsite.

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