Founding Account Executive

Painted Desert Consulting partners with growth stage and Series B companies to serve as their Talent Acquisition team. Our Client is a fast growing fintech startup building the modern payments infrastructure for the digital economy. From high growth SaaS platforms to consumer apps to enterprise software, building a payments toolbox that matches each need.

As a Founding AE, you will architect and execute the go to market strategy for our payments toolbox platform, driving adoption across our core market segments. This is a high impact, entrepreneurial role that spans the complete sales and customer journey. Starting from market strategy and account based sales through customer onboarding, expansion, and product feedback loops.

You will be the bridge between product innovation and market opportunity, responsible for positioning our sophisticated payments infrastructure in ways that resonate with technical founders, engineering leaders, and business decision makers. Operating at the intersection of product influence and revenue generation, working closely with the founders to define market positioning, build the sales engine from the ground up, and establish the company as a trusted, category defining platform in the evolving payments ecosystem.

• Define and refine the GTM strategy including target market segments, buyer personas, value propositions, and competitive positioning for the payments toolbox
• Identify and engage high value prospects across your core segments. Focused on SaaS companies, fintech platforms, consumer apps with payment flows, and enterprise software companies with embedded payments requirements
• Own the entire sales process from prospecting and needs assessment through technical evaluation, negotiation, and contract closure. Build relationships with both technical evaluators (CTOs, engineering leads) and business stakeholders
• Serve as the primary liaison between prospects and internal product, engineering, and solution architecture teams to ensure successful evaluations and seamless implementations
• Drive customer success and expansion by managing post sale relationships, understanding customer use cases, identifying upsell opportunities, and ensuring strong product market fit
• Become the voice of the customer internally, gathering feedback from prospects and customers to inform product roadmap priorities, identify market gaps, and refine positioning
• Build credibility and generate pipeline through industry participation, including speaking at fintech and developer conferences, participating in payments ecosystem forums, and building relationships with adjacent infrastructure partners
• Establish sales processes, metrics, and forecasting systems that scale with the business while maintaining agility and transparency
• As the team scales, mentor and develop junior sales professionals and potentially manage an outbound team

• Minimum 5 years of hands on SaaS experience, with proven success selling enterprise or midmarket solutions
• Direct experience selling into technical buyer personas (engineering teams, founders, CTOs, VP Engineering) who influence purchase decisions
• Track record of closing deals in the $20K-500K+ ACV range
• Demonstrated commitment to continuous learning, especially in fast moving markets
• Ability to build genuine rapport and trust with senior technical and business leaders
• Resilience and grit with a willingness to embrace the challenges of building something from zero and persist through setbacks