Founding Account Executive (Product - Watcher)

The role

You will own the sales cycle for Watcher, a coding agent security product, from a qualified champion's interest to a signed contract. You will work with forward-deployed engineers on technical evaluations and build the sales playbook for the team.

What you will do

• Find the champion in each qualified account and map who else must say yes.
• Run the build-vs-buy conversation with platform and security engineering teams.
• Secure an executive sponsor and convert interest into a scoped proof of value with agreed success criteria.
• Partner with forward-deployed engineers on technical evaluations and keep them pointed at the decision.
• Build the commercial and ROI case for executive-level investment.
• Own negotiation, security review, procurement and close in multi-stakeholder cycles.
• Identify warm introduction paths and create high-value engagement opportunities such as panels and roundtables.
• Write the sales playbook covering qualification, discovery, objections, pricing and security questionnaire answers.
• Report on pipeline health and stage conversion.
• Give honest buyer feedback to the product team on positioning, pricing and collateral.

Required qualifications

• 5+ years in go-to-market roles.
• Track record of closing five- and six-figure ACV technical deals as an account executive into engineering or security organisations.
• Personally taken a technical champion's interest through the organisation to a signed contract.
• 2+ years at a startup without mature marketing or an SDR team, generating your own pipeline.
• Technical credibility with technical buyers such as directors of product security and principal security engineers.

Nice to have

• Experience closing into large, slow organisations such as banks, quant funds or enterprise technology companies.
• Experience selling security, developer tools or infrastructure.
• Non-linear background such as former founder, operator, or a hybrid selling and product or strategy role.

Benefits

• Market competitive salary and equity.
• Performance incentives against ARR targets.
• Unlimited token budget for compute.
• Unlimited vacation.
• Unlimited sick leave.
• Up to 6 months of paid parental leave.
• Comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance.
• Retirement savings with competitive employer matching.
• Lunch, dinner and snacks provided on workdays.
• Paid work trips, including staff retreats, business trips and relevant conferences.
• $1,000 (USD) yearly professional development budget.
• Relocation support and visa fees if applicable.

Before you apply

• Visa sponsorship is offered in the UK, but not guaranteed for every role or candidate; if an offer is made, they will work to find a visa route.
• Hiring process: screening interview, take-home exercise (2-3 hours), 2-3 technical interviews, and a final interview with the CEO.
• Resumes are screened by a human, and final decisions are made by the hiring team; AI-powered tools assist with screening.

About the company

Apollo Research works on risks from AI models themselves, especially deceptive alignment and scheming, and on evaluations and mitigations for them. It also builds Watcher, a coding agent security product.