Senior Account Executive; National Labs & Federal Health

Senior Account Executive (National Labs & Federal Health)

Mclean, Virginia

Red Cell Federal is seeking a driven Account Executive with a proven track record of selling enterprise software and services to the public sector. Reporting directly to the CRO, you will own new business development across the military services and Combatant Commands, from the earliest customer engagement through signed contract and award.

This role requires a proven enterprise software seller. You have carried an individual quota as an Account Executive, you have consistently hit it, and you can speak precisely to your numbers. Experience selling for a startup or early-stage company — a product without an established category or reference base — is what we value most. This is not a seat where we develop a seller;

you arrive knowing how to run a cycle

Territory strategy, built jointly. Develop the account plan for your segment with the CSO team, executive leadership, and your peers on the federal team. Bring the field intelligence and a clear recommendation, expect real debate, own the execution once direction is set.

New business capture. Personally source, qualify, and close new-name business. Own the full cycle from first introduction through award and initial expansion.

Expansion of existing footholds. Grow the accounts where we are already delivering. Turn a successful pilot or initial award into follow-on scope, adjacent adoption, and durable funding.

Path to contract. Find the fastest legitimate route onto contract and know why you chose it. Own the vehicle and teaming decisions for your accounts.

Funding fluency. Identify and align to available funding, work within budget cycle timing, and help customers build the justification to fund a new capability.

Relationship depth. Build durable trust at the working level, with contracting officers, and at the senior decision layer. Be the person the customer calls before there is a requirement.

Brand stewardship. Exercise judgment about what Red Cell Federal puts its name on. Credibility in this community compounds slowly and erodes quickly. Surface concerns early and do not chase revenue that costs us standing.

Product feedback loop. Translate mission problems into concrete input for engineering and product. At this stage, your read on the customer directly shapes the roadmap.

Operating discipline. Maintain the CRM hygiene, capture process, and forecast rigor that let leadership allocate capital against your pipeline.

Required Qualifications

• Quota-carrying enterprise software AE experience
• 8+ years selling technology into the federal government, with a majority in new business, and demonstrated wins in at least one of our two core markets — the national labs or federal health.
• A real point of view on which of the two they would attack first and why. We want the reasoning, and we want it grounded in where their network actually is.
• For the labs half: understanding that you are frequently selling to the M&O contractor operating the lab rather than to the government directly, and experience navigating that path. Candidates who have only sold FAR-direct will misjudge this entirely.
• For the health half: fluency in the vehicle-gated nature of federal health procurement, and command of how VA, DHA, and HHS each buy differently from one another.
• A verifiable record of first-dollar
  -in wins where your company had no prior footprint.
• Funding literacy across civilian agencies, including how research and mission funding differs from enterprise IT funding.
• Comfort operating with less structure than a single-agency territory provides. This seat rewards someone who prioritizes ruthlessly and can tell us clearly what they chose not to chase.
• Ability to sell with active, opinionated executive involvement.
• U.S. citizenship. Bachelor's degree, or equivalent depth of operational experience.

Preferred

• Experience across both core markets rather than one. Rare, and valuable enough that we will look hard at anyone who has it.
• Prior time inside a national laboratory, an M&O contractor, or a federal health organization.
• Experience selling AI/ML, data platform, or decision-support software into…