Account Executive: Emerging Hardtech - SMB/MM

THE MISSION

We don't do "lightweight." We build the systems the physical world runs on. While the rest of the world optimizes ad clicks, our customers are building drones, satellites, nuclear reactors, electric aircraft, and robots, and they are doing it on ION.

The next generation of those companies is small today: a 40-person startup that just raised its Series A, a 200-person shop scaling from prototype to production. They are drowning in spreadsheets, paper travelers, and legacy MES tools built for a different century. Nobody has knocked on their door yet. That's your job.

As our Account Executive, Emerging Hardtech, you are a hunter first. You will find the small and mid-market manufacturers who are about to outgrow their tooling, get in the door before anyone else does, and close them. Then you keep them: you own the accounts you land through their first year, drive adoption, and set up the expansion. You build the pipeline, you work the pipeline, and you grow what you close.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Hunt. Relentlessly. Build your own pipeline from scratch through cold outbound: calls, email sequences, LinkedIn, trade shows, and plant visits. You'll run a high-volume prospecting motion into SMB and mid-market hardtech manufacturers and own your pipeline number, not just your bookings number.

• Own the Full Cycle. Run first call to signature on deals typically in the five-figure to low-six-figure ARR range, with cycles measured in weeks to a few months, not years. Discovery, demo, technical validation, pricing, and close are all yours.

• Land, Then Expand. Stay the owner of every logo you close through its first year. Drive onboarding and adoption with our Manufacturing Success team, run the first renewal, and find the next site, team, or module to sell into.

• Speak Engineer. Translate how a shop floor actually runs (travelers, work orders, NCRs, inventory, quality) into clear ION value for founders, Heads of Manufacturing, and operations leads.

• Run a Tight Process. Keep HubSpot clean, forecast accurately, qualify hard with MEDDPICC, and disqualify fast when it's not a fit so your time goes to deals that will close.

• Be the Eyes on the Ground. You'll talk to more early-stage hardware companies than anyone else here. Feed what you hear (pricing pushback, missing features, competitor moves) back to product, marketing, and leadership.

WHO YOU ARE

• A Hunter by Nature. You'd rather make 60 cold calls than wait for an inbound lead. Outbound isn't a chore you tolerate; it's the part of the job you're best at. You've built pipeline from nothing before and can show the numbers.

• Hungry to Grow. You have 3+ years in B2B sales, perhaps as an SDR/BDR who earned a closing role or as an AE in your first or second quota-carrying seat. You know you're not done learning and you want a place where the ramp is steep and the upside is real.

• Technically Curious. Ideally you've spent time in or around manufacturing: selling into it, working on a shop floor, or building hardware yourself. You already know what a traveler, a work order, and an NCR are, or you'll learn fast. Either way, you're comfortable in a room full of engineers.

• Fast and Disciplined. SMB/MM sales rewards speed: quick follow-up, tight next steps, and a calendar that's full by Monday morning. You run a repeatable process and you don't let deals drift.

• Coachable and Competitive. You take feedback from call reviews without flinching, apply it the same week, and hate losing more than you love winning.

• Resilient. You hear "no" a lot and treat it as data, not defeat.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS

• 3+ years of B2B sales experience, with at least 1 year in a quota-carrying closing role (AE or equivalent)

• Demonstrated outbound prospecting success: you can speak to the activity, conversion rates, and pipeline you personally sourced

• Track record of meeting or exceeding quota or pipeline targets

• Experience running discovery and product demos for a technical B2B product (SaaS, hardware, or industrial software)

• Working fluency in a modern sales stack: CRM (HubSpot or Salesforce), sequencing tools (Outreach, Apollo, or similar), call intelligence (Gong, Attention, or similar), and LinkedIn Sales Navigator

• Strong written and verbal communication; you write cold emails people actually answer

• Comfortable in a fast-moving, early-stage environment where the playbook is still being written

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Background selling into manufacturing, aerospace, defense, energy, or other industrial verticals

• Hands-on experience in manufacturing engineering, operations, or quality at a hardware company

Benefits & Perks

• Health Insurance; medical, vision, dental, & life insurance.

• Paid Parental Leave.

• Employee Stock Option Plan.

• Team outings, group lunches, open office, happy hours.

• Paid holidays, sick days.

• Flexible Friday and PTO.

• 401K.

First Resonance is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workforce.

First Resonance participates in E-Verify. As part of our onboarding process, a new hire's Form I-9 information will be shared with the federal government to confirm they are authorized to work in the U.S.

The base salary range for this role is $80,000–$100,000, with on-target earnings (OTE) of $160,000–$200,000, plus equity.

Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience and skillset, and location.

First Resonance accelerates the speed and reliability of hardware development for companies manufacturing the next generation of hardware products. This includes space exploration, electric airplanes, autonomous vehicles, nuclear reactors, robotics, and more. We are a group of software, hardware, and manufacturing engineers that are bringing the best of modern UX and data science to an industry that has been overly rigid in its innovation. We are removing the barriers preventing radical advancement by providing tools to manufacturing engineers and operators to move information more freely, collaborate with their teams more easily, and use the power of data to predict problems and provide insights that result in better hardware quality and delivery.