
Strategic Account Executive - N.A. [REMOTE]
Upbound - Job Posting, San Francisco, CA, United States
Strategic Account Executive - N.A. [REMOTE]
Upbound is redefining how modern infrastructure is built for the Agentic AI Era. We’re the creators and primary maintainers of
Crossplane , and we’re building the Intelligent Control Plane —a new platform layer that makes infrastructure programmable, autonomous, and composable .
Our mission
is to power the AI-native enterprise with a foundational platform layer that helps teams provision, operate, and adapt infrastructure at scale—so platforms are ready for
both humans and AI agents . We partner with leading cloud providers, ISVs, and open‑source communities to help organizations move faster with greater confidence.
Today, Upbound supports Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across 100+ countries . Crossplane has surpassed 100M+ downloads and is used by 1,000+ teams worldwide . We’re a Series B company backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital , and we’ve raised $69M to date. Learn more at upbound.io .
The Strategic Enterprise Account Executive role is an outside sales position responsible for developing, managing, and closing business for Strategic Enterprise customers in the
North America
region and is an integral part of the field sales organization. This person will partner with our demand generation, solutions engineering, and product teams to guide prospective customers through a solutions sales journey of modernizing their cloud platform architecture. This position will require you to develop a deep understanding of the specific challenges customers are facing to help them positively achieve their business outcomes with Upbound’s solutions.
This role will work cross-functionally with product, marketing, sales development and customer success to provide a tight-knit customer relationship, account leadership and direction in both the pre‑sales and post‑sales processes.
In this role, you will:
Carry a sales quota that aligns with Upbound’s revenue goals.
Function as the primary point of contact and the face of Upbound for new prospects and customers.
Conduct sales activities including prospecting and developing opportunities within existing customer accounts.
Manage complex strategic enterprise sales motions with multiple prospect engagement points.
Ensure the successful rollout and adoption of Upbound products and services in partnership with pre‑and‑post sales engineering and support.
Take ownership of your business by documenting the buying criteria, process, and owners to ensure pipeline accuracy.
Look for and implement improvements to sales processes, tools, and materials.
Travel to customer sites and industry conferences and events as needed.
You are a good fit if you have:
Proven track record of consistently meeting or exceeding assigned annual/quarterly goals and targets and consistently ranked top 1-2 on your team.
Sold to large enterprise G2K companies and adept at navigating global, multi‑national organizations.
Sold AI, Cloud, or Infrastructure platform oriented products.
Experience in solution and value selling in the enterprise cloud, cloud‑native, and AI product spaces
Correctly estimate qualifying opportunities based on MEDDICC.
Drive to build a business, hunger to find and close deals, and pride in the growth of the business.
Relentless focus on customer success and meeting the needs of present and future customers.
Experience building positive professional relationships with senior IT and business executives.
Clear and articulate written, verbal, online, and in‑person communication skills.
Professionalism, polish, attention to detail, and strong follow‑up.
A collaborative mindset and willingness to help solve problems outside of your immediate lane.
Fun in your job and enjoy what you do.
Strong understanding of cloud‑native infrastructure, AI solutions, and/or Infrastructure as Code tooling (Terraform, Ansible, Chef).
Significant experience selling disruptive technology into focused markets.
#LI-REMOTE
Why Upbound? At Upbound, you’ll help shape the systems and strategies that drive predictable, scalable growth in a product‑led company embracing usage‑based models. If you're excited to build from the ground up, work with cutting‑edge cloud technologies, and directly impact how revenue is generated and scaled—this is your seat at the table.
About Upbound Upbound is pioneering infrastructure platforms for the Agentic AI Era, serving Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across more than 100 countries. The company empowers infrastructure and platform teams with Intelligent Control Planes—based on Kubernetes and Crossplane—that provision, operate, and adapt so platforms are ready for both humans and AI agents. Upbound is the creator and primary maintainer of Crossplane, the popular open‑source framework for building cloud‑native control planes, with over 100 million downloads and adoption by more than 1,000 teams worldwide. A Series B startup backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital, Upbound has raised $69M to date. For more information, visit
www.upbound.io .
Equal Employment Opportunity As set forth in Upbound - Job Posting’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:
A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.
A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.
An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.
An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.
Voluntary Self‑Identification of Disability We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.
Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at
www.dol.gov/ofccp .
How do you know if you have a disability?
Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
Blind or low vision
Cancer (past or present)
Cardiovascular or heart disease
Celiac disease
Cerebral palsy
Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
Diabetes
Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
Intellectual or developmental disability
Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
Neurodivergence, for example, attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
Short stature (dwarfism)
Traumatic brain injury
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Crossplane , and we’re building the Intelligent Control Plane —a new platform layer that makes infrastructure programmable, autonomous, and composable .
Our mission
is to power the AI-native enterprise with a foundational platform layer that helps teams provision, operate, and adapt infrastructure at scale—so platforms are ready for
both humans and AI agents . We partner with leading cloud providers, ISVs, and open‑source communities to help organizations move faster with greater confidence.
Today, Upbound supports Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across 100+ countries . Crossplane has surpassed 100M+ downloads and is used by 1,000+ teams worldwide . We’re a Series B company backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital , and we’ve raised $69M to date. Learn more at upbound.io .
The Strategic Enterprise Account Executive role is an outside sales position responsible for developing, managing, and closing business for Strategic Enterprise customers in the
North America
region and is an integral part of the field sales organization. This person will partner with our demand generation, solutions engineering, and product teams to guide prospective customers through a solutions sales journey of modernizing their cloud platform architecture. This position will require you to develop a deep understanding of the specific challenges customers are facing to help them positively achieve their business outcomes with Upbound’s solutions.
This role will work cross-functionally with product, marketing, sales development and customer success to provide a tight-knit customer relationship, account leadership and direction in both the pre‑sales and post‑sales processes.
In this role, you will:
Carry a sales quota that aligns with Upbound’s revenue goals.
Function as the primary point of contact and the face of Upbound for new prospects and customers.
Conduct sales activities including prospecting and developing opportunities within existing customer accounts.
Manage complex strategic enterprise sales motions with multiple prospect engagement points.
Ensure the successful rollout and adoption of Upbound products and services in partnership with pre‑and‑post sales engineering and support.
Take ownership of your business by documenting the buying criteria, process, and owners to ensure pipeline accuracy.
Look for and implement improvements to sales processes, tools, and materials.
Travel to customer sites and industry conferences and events as needed.
You are a good fit if you have:
Proven track record of consistently meeting or exceeding assigned annual/quarterly goals and targets and consistently ranked top 1-2 on your team.
Sold to large enterprise G2K companies and adept at navigating global, multi‑national organizations.
Sold AI, Cloud, or Infrastructure platform oriented products.
Experience in solution and value selling in the enterprise cloud, cloud‑native, and AI product spaces
Correctly estimate qualifying opportunities based on MEDDICC.
Drive to build a business, hunger to find and close deals, and pride in the growth of the business.
Relentless focus on customer success and meeting the needs of present and future customers.
Experience building positive professional relationships with senior IT and business executives.
Clear and articulate written, verbal, online, and in‑person communication skills.
Professionalism, polish, attention to detail, and strong follow‑up.
A collaborative mindset and willingness to help solve problems outside of your immediate lane.
Fun in your job and enjoy what you do.
Strong understanding of cloud‑native infrastructure, AI solutions, and/or Infrastructure as Code tooling (Terraform, Ansible, Chef).
Significant experience selling disruptive technology into focused markets.
#LI-REMOTE
Why Upbound? At Upbound, you’ll help shape the systems and strategies that drive predictable, scalable growth in a product‑led company embracing usage‑based models. If you're excited to build from the ground up, work with cutting‑edge cloud technologies, and directly impact how revenue is generated and scaled—this is your seat at the table.
About Upbound Upbound is pioneering infrastructure platforms for the Agentic AI Era, serving Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across more than 100 countries. The company empowers infrastructure and platform teams with Intelligent Control Planes—based on Kubernetes and Crossplane—that provision, operate, and adapt so platforms are ready for both humans and AI agents. Upbound is the creator and primary maintainer of Crossplane, the popular open‑source framework for building cloud‑native control planes, with over 100 million downloads and adoption by more than 1,000 teams worldwide. A Series B startup backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital, Upbound has raised $69M to date. For more information, visit
www.upbound.io .
Equal Employment Opportunity As set forth in Upbound - Job Posting’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:
A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.
A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.
An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.
An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.
Voluntary Self‑Identification of Disability We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.
Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at
www.dol.gov/ofccp .
How do you know if you have a disability?
Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
Blind or low vision
Cancer (past or present)
Cardiovascular or heart disease
Celiac disease
Cerebral palsy
Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
Diabetes
Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
Intellectual or developmental disability
Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
Neurodivergence, for example, attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
Short stature (dwarfism)
Traumatic brain injury
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