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Salary: USD 400,000 - 450,000 / annual
Aiven is establishing its first sales presence in the Bay Area, targeting AI-native companies that are making foundational decisions about their data infrastructure today. This is a quota-carrying, high-impact new logo acquisition role focused on early-stage, engineering-led AI companies in the region.
You will engage C-level and senior technical stakeholders (CTO, CIO, VP Engineering, Head of Product) at scale-stage AI-native companies, including model builders, AI application companies, AI infrastructure and developer-tools firms, and product companies rebuilding their data plane for AI workloads. Your territory is Bay Area-based, and you'll work from a combination of Aiven's San Francisco office and customer sites.
Key responsibilities include:
• Prospecting and account development: Work a named list of Bay Area AI-native accounts, identifying teams about to adopt streaming, analytics, or PostgreSQL infrastructure. Attend meetups, hackathons, founder dinners, and engineering offices where infrastructure decisions are made. Convert usage into committed contracts as run-rate justifies.
• Sales methodology: Leverage MEDDPICC qualification, Challenger Sales, and Command of the Message to manage complex sales cycles. Understand how AI companies buy—through Terraform, APIs, and documentation rather than RFPs—and guide prospects through self-serve and Marketplace private offer paths before converting to committed contracts.
• Competitive displacement: Identify opportunities to displace competitors, especially within companies currently on cloud platforms. Move prospects from migration assessments to committed, deal-registered contracts.
• Cloud partner co-selling: Execute Marketplace private offers, startup credit programs, and deal registration with cloud partners, particularly Google Cloud account teams covering your accounts.
• Ecosystem building: Develop relationships with founders, platform engineers, investors, and portfolio companies. Work with Aiven for Startups and investor relationships. Source speakers and co-hosts for Bay Area meetups and developer events.
• Market intelligence: Close the feedback loop by sharing learnings with Aiven product and leadership on what AI-native teams are building, competitive alternatives they choose, and why.
Success metrics: 90 days—fifteen first meetings with priority accounts, five qualified opportunities, first pay-as-you-go customer, and deal registration on all cloud partner co-sell opportunities. Six months—ten qualified opportunities, first new Bay Area logos or competitive displacement win, first usage-based customer converted to commitment. Twelve months—eight new Bay Area logos or two competitive displacement wins with usage-based conversions.
REQUIREMENTS:
• Proven track record closing new logos at technical, high-growth companies selling data, developer, or cloud infrastructure on usage- or consumption-based pricing models. Must demonstrate quota attainment, deal sizes, and percentage of pipeline sourced independently.
• Experience building a territory from a standing start; preference for candidates willing to repeat this.
• Technical depth sufficient to engage platform engineers. Working knowledge of Kafka, ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, how AI applications and agents use them, and Terraform-provisioned evaluations.
• Fluency in MEDDPICC and Command of the Message methodologies. Ability to influence buyer decisions through technical and business insights rather than presentations.
• Existing network within Bay Area AI and developer ecosystem, or demonstrated ability to build similar networks in previous roles.
• Must live in the Bay Area. This is an in-person role split between San Francisco office and customer sites.
Note: Candidates who don't match every requirement but have built territories in technical markets and can demonstrate results are encouraged to apply.
