Harper is a high-performance distributed application platform. It combines a database, in-memory cache, and real-time message broker to allow users to create enterprise-grade solutions with fewer moving parts, fewer lines of code, and a superior developer experience.
Job Description:
Harper is seeking a dynamic and accomplished Senior Account Executive to pioneer enterprise relationships and build transformational sales pipeline from the ground up. You'll have the opportunity to sell Harper's proven, cutting-edge distributed data platform—a solution that has already demonstrated significant value and ROI for leading enterprise companies. This high-impact role is ideal for a top-performing sales professional with a proven ability to develop greenfield territories, cultivate relationships with net-new enterprise prospects, and systematically build sustainable revenue streams.
As a key member of our sales team reporting directly to the VP of Sales, you will operate as a relationship architect and territory pioneer, identifying untapped enterprise opportunities and establishing Harper as the preferred partner for distributed data platform solutions. With a proven product that has already delivered measurable business value to Fortune 1000 companies, you'll leverage your prospecting expertise and relationship-building acumen to create meaningful connections with CTOs, CIOs, ecommerce executives, digital sales leaders, and engineering leadership, transforming cold markets into thriving sales territories.
The ideal candidate is a proven pipeline builder and enterprise relationship cultivator—someone who excels at establishing trust with senior executives, systematically developing opportunities from initial outreach through close, and creating lasting partnerships that drive long-term growth.
Responsibilities:
Pipeline Development & Territory Building:
- Build enterprise sales pipeline from scratch by identifying, qualifying, and developing high-value prospects across assigned territories and key verticals
- Execute systematic prospecting strategies to establish relationships with net-new Fortune 1000 accounts and create sustainable revenue streams
- Develop and maintain a robust pipeline of enterprise opportunities through strategic outbound prospecting, executive networking, and market development activities
Enterprise Relationship Cultivation:
- Establish and nurture C-level relationships with CTOs, CIOs, ecommerce executives, digital sales leaders, and senior IT decision-makers, building trust and credibility from first contact through long-term partnership
- Create executive-level presence and mindshare within target accounts, positioning yourself as a trusted advisor and strategic partner
- Develop multi-threaded relationships across complex organizational structures, ensuring broad stakeholder alignment and deal progression
Strategic Account Development:
- Research and map organizational structures, technology landscapes, and business priorities to identify and create compelling use cases for Harper solutions
- Architect comprehensive account penetration strategies, moving from initial relationship establishment to multi-year, multi-million-dollar partnership opportunities
- Transform early-stage relationships into strategic partnerships by aligning Harper's capabilities with customer digital transformation initiatives
Sales Execution & Deal Management:
- Own the full enterprise sales lifecycle from initial prospecting through contract signature, including complex deal structuring and executive negotiations
- Perform deep discovery and needs analysis to create customized, value-based proposals that resonate with technical and business stakeholders
- Collaborate cross-functionally with executive leadership, product, engineering, and marketing to optimize account development and deal progression
Forecasting & Strategic Insights:
- Provide accurate pipeline forecasting and territory planning, demonstrating clear visibility into relationship development and deal progression
- Contribute market insights and competitive intelligence gathered through relationship development to inform product strategy and go-to-market optimization
Qualifications:
- 8+ years of enterprise sales experience in infrastructure, developer platforms, or data-centric technologies with demonstrated success building pipeline from scratch in greenfield territories and closing 6-8 figure deals
- Proven track record of establishing enterprise relationships from initial outreach, with demonstrated ability to gain access to and influence C-suite stakeholders including technology, ecommerce, and digital sales leadership
- Experience developing and executing territory plans that systematically build pipeline through strategic prospecting and relationship development
- Demonstrated success navigating complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles with enterprise customers, particularly in net-new account development, with a track record of closing high-value deals in the $100k-$10M range
- Strategic mindset with exceptional business acumen, capable of articulating ROI, TCO, and technical differentiators to establish credibility with senior executives
- Fluency in cloud, database, CDN, and edge computing concepts, with ability to establish technical credibility during initial relationship-building conversations
- Expert-level proficiency in CRM and sales enablement platforms, with disciplined pipeline development and forecasting accuracy
- Highly self-directed and entrepreneurial, with demonstrated ability to thrive in ambiguous environments and build something from nothing
Bonus Qualifications:
- Previous Sales Methodology training focused on enterprise relationship building (e.g. MEDDIC, SPIN, Challenger Sales)
- Experience building sales territories in emerging technology categories or high-growth companies
- Track record of developing executive champions and navigating complex procurement processes in Fortune 1000 environments
Interview Process
- 1st Stage, Initial Screening: 30-minute get-to-know-you Zoom interview with the Head of People Operations.
- 2nd Stage, Hiring Manager Interview: 60-minute Zoom interview with our VP of Sales.
- 3rd Stage, Sales Peer Discussion: 60-minute Zoom interview with a current Solution Architect or Senior Sales Member at Harper.
- 4th Stage, Sales Challenge: Please note that not all candidates will move forward to the fourth stage. Candidates who do not move forward will receive feedback on their code challenge solution.
- 4th Stage, Presentation: Present sales challenge to a panel of peers, discuss your solution, and answer additional questions (60-90 minute Zoom session).
- 5th Stage, Executive Interview: 30-minute get-to-know-you Zoom conversation with Harper co-founders.
Compensation: $270,000+ including base salary and on target incentive pay
Why Join Us:
- Opportunity to be part of a high-growth startup with a collaborative and supportive team culture.
- Flexible work environment with remote work options and a focus on work-life balance.
- Competitive compensation package including base salary, commission, and benefits.
- Room for career advancement and professional development opportunities.
If you are a motivated self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment and shares our values of transparency, authenticity, and empowerment, we want to hear from you!
Top Skills
What We Do
Harper is a globally-distributed edge application platform. It reduces complexity, increases performance, and lowers costs by combining user-defined applications, a high-performance database, and an enterprise-grade streaming broker into a single package. The platform offers unlimited horizontal scale at the click of a button, and synchronizes data across all the nodes in a cluster in milliseconds. Harper simplifies the process of delivering applications and the data that drives them to the edge, which dramatically improves both the user experience and total cost of ownership for large-scale applications. Deploying Harper on global infrastructure enables a CDN-like solution for enterprise data and applications.
Harper is partnered with global companies like Akamai, Verizon, AWS, and Lumen to bring a complete solution to the market. Their customers include massive gaming companies, global retailers, digital advertising innovators, and more.
Harper has over 130K deployments and 15K community members. Their leadership has a deep and diverse background in solving complex tech challenges for organizations from startups up to Fortune 100 companies and beyond. Harper has achieved RedHat certification on OpenShift, and is deployable anywhere, including Linode, DigitalOcean Marketplace, hyper-scaler clouds, and more.
Harper has been awarded Best Small Companies to Work For by BuiltIn, Top Edge Computing Companies to Watch, Startup of the Year by Hackernoon. Within the last year, our CEO has been awarded the Ethical Leader of the Year by the University of Colorado and was recognized as a Titan 100 for the Colorado Titan 100 Awards.
Why Work With Us
Harper is an innovation-motivated company that solves the most complex problems facing technology at scale. Leading with transparency and radical authenticity, employees receive specific and timely feedback driving rapid career growth and a strong sense of ownership. At Harper, we build people up to realize their full potential.
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