Account Executive

Location: Austin, TX (hybrid preferred). Open to candidates outside Austin open to travel roughly 50% of the time to Austin, customer meetings and market-facing events. 

Reports to: VP, Sales Works with: Founding Sales Engineer, dedicated BDR support

The role

Sustainment is building the software layer that connects manufacturers to the supply base they depend on. We sell into upper-mid-market and enterprise manufacturers, and the category we're selling into doesn't have a name yet.

That's the job. There is no established buyer category, no analyst quadrant, no competitor whose displacement pitch you can borrow. You are selling a business case to executives who have never bought this before, and you are building the pattern as you go alongside a team of like-minded high performers motivated by defining the category.

This is a long-cycle, multi-threaded, consultative enterprise sale. If your strength is volume and velocity, this is the wrong seat.

What you'll own

• New logos, and the expansion inside them. You land the first buying group and then earn the next one — a second division, a second plant, a second function. Expansion here means new buying centers inside the account, not adding seats to an existing contract.
• A defined target account list. You work named accounts in partnership with a BDR on outbound. You are not handed a geography and told to go find something.
• The business case. You build the ROI argument, you defend it against finance and procurement scrutiny, and you carry it through a buying committee. Feature demos support the case — they are not the case.
• Multi-threading. Enterprise manufacturers do not buy through one champion. You map the org, build coverage across supply chain, operations, procurement, IT, and finance, and you keep the deal alive when your champion moves.
• Market intelligence for the whole company. What you learn in the field goes back to product, marketing, and leadership — not just into your own deal notes. At our stage, your pattern recognition is a company asset. This is an explicit expectation of the role, not a nice-to-have behavior.
• The pod. You run tight with the founding SE on technical discovery and proof, and with your BDR on account penetration. The three of you operate as one unit against your ICP prospect accounts and opportunities..

Hard requirements

• 5+ years total closing experience in B2B SaaS.
• 2+ years closing experience in an enterprise sales motion. 
• A demonstrated enterprise-style sales process: long cycles, multiple stakeholders, formal procurement, committee decisions. Bring specific deals and tell us how you multi-threaded them.
• Experience selling into an undefined or emerging category, where no buyer playbook existed and you built or collaborated to build one.
• Value-based selling. You can construct an ROI model and defend it under pressure from someone whose job is to break it.
• Genuine land-and-expand experience — landing new logos and growing them by winning additional buying groups or divisions.
• Comfort operating off a defined target account list in coordinated partnership with sales engineering and BDR support.
• You operate in a constant state of learning and improving spurred on by your own curiosity and drive to succeed.

Strong plus

• ERP or SAP familiarity.
• Working knowledge of procurement and RFQ workflows.
• Experience selling into manufacturing, defense, industrial, or supply chain markets.
• Experience as an early AE at a Series A/B company.

How we work

Sustainment is a Public Benefit Corporation headquartered in Austin. Our team includes retired military leadership and operators who have built things under real constraints. We run on clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and a bias to action. Low ego is not a slogan here — it's a hiring filter.