Account Executive- Startups, Install Base
- Your genuine care for others helps you build authentic connections with founders and developers facing tough architectural decisions.
- You are creative and adaptable, which helps you craft unique solutions and refine early motions into effective playbooks.
- Your curiosity about new technologies and AI-native architectures aligns with the learning aspects of this role.
- The strong commercial focus on revenue outcomes and account growth may feel uncomfortable or secondary to your people-centered values.
- The ambiguity, fast pace, and need for assertive decision-making can overwhelm your preference for harmony and clear values alignment.
About Vercel:
Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company. We free people and agents to ship what’s next.
For more than a decade, Vercel has shaped how the web is built. As the team behind Next.js, v0, and AI SDK, we create products that help builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience.
Now, software is entering a new era, and the next generation of products will not just be used by people. They will be built, extended, and operated by agents.
We are building the platform for that future, trusted by companies like OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide. Whether you’re building our products, supporting our customers, growing our community, or shaping our story, you’ll help define what comes next.
About Startups @Vercel
The Vercel Startups org exists to help founders navigate the shift to AI-native development with confidence. Startups move faster than ever—what used to take years now happens in days—and the decisions founders make early can either unlock scale or become long-term constraints. We partner with startups at the critical moments where technical, commercial, and strategic support starts to matter most.
We’re a talent-dense team made up of former founders, engineers, and experienced go-to-market operators who bring firsthand experience building, scaling, and supporting modern software companies. Many of us have sat on the other side of the table, making architectural decisions, navigating tradeoffs, and scaling under real constraints, and we bring that perspective into every customer interaction.
We operate with a growth mindset and strong shared ownership. We dig deep to understand our customers, work closely across functions as one team, and find ways to win even when the path forward isn’t obvious. Resilience, curiosity, and a willingness to push through hard problems are table stakes here.
This is a team for people who want to operate with high trust, high agency, and high impact — alongside peers who care deeply about helping startups succeed.
About The Role
You are an expert in Vercel, you have incredible pattern recognition, and are at the bleeding edge of the tech and tools defining how we live and work. In this role, you'll help startups unlock Vercel's full value from adoption through scaling—building relationships with founders and technical leaders who are making critical architectural decisions. You'll analyze usage patterns to identify expansion opportunities, coordinate cross-functional teams to drive outcomes, and guide teams as they adopt AI-native architectures. By leveraging automation and AI to maximize your impact, you'll help refine early plays into repeatable playbooks that scale across our startup portfolio.
What You Will Do
- Build trusted relationships with founders, developers, and technical leaders by quickly developing deep understanding of their architecture, use cases, and technical constraints
- Use customer signals and usage patterns to determine the right next play and focus time on the highest-leverage opportunities for adoption, expansion, or re-engagement
- Quarterback customers end-to-end, strategically deploying Sales Engineers, Developer Support Engineers, Product, and Support at the right moments to drive outcomes
- Own and grow a portfolio of startup customers by partnering with them as they move from early adoption to scale
- Partner with founders and developers as they adopt AI-native features and architectures, helping them understand how Vercel’s Frontend Cloud fits into a rapidly evolving developer ecosystem and supports new workloads, performance requirements, and scaling patterns
- Use automation, agents, and self-built workflows to operate at high leverage and focus time and energy on the most impactful customer work
- Operate comfortably in an evolving environment, helping refine early motions and turn what works into repeatable playbooks
About You
We’re looking for someone who sits at the intersection of technical curiosity, commercial excellence, and startup mindset.
You might be a great fit if you’ve developed this skill set through a range of paths—whether as a builder, founder, engineer, or in a technical go-to-market role—and you bring strong judgment, ownership, and curiosity to how you work.
In practice, this looks like someone who:
- Learns complex technical products quickly and enjoys reasoning about how modern web and AI-native applications are built and scaled
- Can speak comfortably with developers and founders, using their language and earning credibility through insight rather than titles
- Has strong sales acumen and experience owning revenue outcomes across a range of deal sizes and complexities
- Believes that the best revenue outcomes come from deeply successful customers, not transactional selling
- Brings a thoughtful, opinionated point of view on modern web infrastructure, frontend performance, and scaling tradeoffs
- Thrives in ambiguity and enjoys shaping how a team and motion evolves from early to more structured
- Is energized by ownership, accountability, and helping customers make smart decisions
What This Role Is Not
- Not a pure Customer Success role focused on reactive support
- Not a transactional sales role detached from customer outcomes
- Not a highly scripted role with narrow ownership or predefined motions
This role requires judgment, curiosity, and comfort operating across technical, strategic, and commercial dimensions.
If you’re based within a pre-determined commuting distance of one of our offices (SF, Austin or NY), the role includes in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. If you're located beyond that distance, the role is fully remote. For location-specific details, please connect with our recruiting team.
Benefits:
- Competitive compensation package, including equity.
- Inclusive Healthcare Package.
- Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
- Flexible Time Off.
- We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.
The San Francisco, CA OTE range for this role is $170,000-$209,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.
Vercel is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Vercel encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.
Best personality fits for this role
Your natural leadership and strategic thinking let you quarterback customer engagements and drive cross-functional teams to deliver results.
Read the ENTJ career guide →Your quick adaptability and love for new challenges make you thrive in the evolving, ambiguous environment of a fast-growing startup org.
Read the ENTP career guide →Your strategic planning skills help you identify the highest-leverage opportunities across a portfolio of startup customers.
Read the INTJ career guide →