Commercial Account Executive

[ABOUT ISTARI DIGITAL]

Istari is a digital engineering software company enabling our customers to turn the physical world into the digital to accomplish their specific mission or business objectives.

Istari was founded with the vision of making open, scalable digital engineering ecosystems a reality – where new technologies and systems are created digitally, free from the real-world constraints of costs and schedules. We are creating the world's best engineering model sharing platform, allowing our customers to simply and securely integrate their models across different engineering disciplines, organizations, and security levels.

At Istari, we are passionate about our mission of creating the world's first open and scalable industrial metaverse. Whether our customers are designing prototypes, performing virtual testing, or training AI and autonomy for complex systems, we know that going digital will save them time, resources, and reduce their environmental impact.

While we are a distributed team with most team-members working remotely, we place an emphasis on staying connected and collaborative, prioritizing in-person opportunities to build trust as a team. At Istari, we still believe that trust is best built in-person. To do this, we have an engineering headquarters in Cambridge, MA for focused technical development and several times per year we gather for an off-site that allows us to develop our professional skills and our team relationships.

[VALUES]

At Istari, we live by our values, which include:

Purposeful Autonomy
We value letting people self-organize and self-motivate.

Our flat structure and lack of meeting clutter are meant to empower individuals and teams to be proactive.

Our autonomy is measured, goal-oriented, and results-driven – not meandering.

Clear objectives help us prioritize our time.

Smart Transparency
We believe in honest-but-kind communication, transparency, and open-door policies.

We love learning about challenges and tackling them early, not hearing good or bad news late.

We share work-in-progress across our team.

Fast feedback keeps autonomy purposeful.

Continual Curiosity
At Istari, we love learning to do things ourselves.

We ask, read, share, teach – even watch YouTube videos – to learn new skills to solve problems.

When we make breakthroughs, we write them down.

Writing focuses ideas, helps us learn, and helps us share.

Equal Opportunity
Istari is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, protected veteran status, or disability status.

The Commercial Account Executive (A&D) is responsible for driving new business and expansion across commercial aerospace and defense markets—including primes, tier 1/2/3 suppliers, high-growth defense technology companies, and adjacent industrial engineering organizations serving national security missions.

You will own the full sales cycle, from prospecting and multi-stakeholder discovery through technical evaluations, pricing, and close. Istari's sales motion is highly consultative and technical; successful AEs deeply understand engineering workflows, digital transformation pain points, and the operational pressures facing A&D hardware producers.

You will collaborate closely with Solution Architects, Demand Generation, and Sales Operations to build pipeline, qualify opportunities, shape technical evaluations, and drive meaningful revenue growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Pipeline Generation & Territory Ownership: Build and execute a territory strategy focused on A&D primes, tiered suppliers, and advanced hardware companies. Drive outbound prospecting to engineering, program, and digital transformation stakeholders. Partner with Demand Gen and BDRs to build predictable, high-quality pipeline. Qualify opportunities based on technical fit, value potential, and organizational readiness
• Sales Execution & Deal Management: Own the full sales cycle from first meeting to close. Conduct discovery to uncover engineering bottlenecks, data fragmentation issues, supplier coordination challenges, and digital engineering priorities. Partner with Solution Architects to scope architectures, plan proofs of value, and deliver compelling demos. Build ROI models and business cases that show impact on design cycle time, supplier integration, cost reduction, and engineering throughput. Navigate complex stakeholder landscapes across engineering, IT, digital transformation teams, and procurement. Lead pricing, contracting, and commercial negotiations
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Solution Architects on technical validation strategy. Provide market, customer, and competitive insights to Product and Engineering. Collaborate with Sales Operations & Strategy on forecasting and territory planning. Contribute to A&D-specific GTM plays, case studies, outreach messaging, and market content
• Customer Relationship Building & Expansion: Build trusted relationships with engineering directors, digital engineering leads, program managers, and supply-chain transformation teams. Identify multi-program and multi-business-unit expansion opportunities to accelerate enterprise penetration. Support Customer Success during onboarding to ensure a smooth transition and long-term value realization. Position Istari as the foundational infrastructure for boundaryless digital engineering, not a feature vendor

Required Qualifications

• 4–8+ years of quota-carrying enterprise software or technical B2B sales
• Experience selling into aerospace & defense / industrial / manufacturing customers
• Proven success navigating complex multi-stakeholder sales cycles with engineering, operations, IT, and procurement
• Experience selling infrastructure, data platforms, engineering software, or cloud/SaaS into technical buyers
• Excellent discovery, qualification, and consultative selling capabilities
• Ability to translate technical workflows into compelling business value for engineering-centric organizations
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; exceptional presenter and storyteller
• High ownership, persistence, and comfort operating in a dynamic, early-stage environment
• Strong outbound prospecting skills and ability to build a territory from the ground up leveraging existing use-cases / connections at Istari
• Team Player
• Willing to travel 25-50%
• Must be a US citizen living within the United States

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience selling to A&D primes (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, GE Aerospace, L3Harris)
• Experience selling into tiered supplier ecosystems and hardware manufacturing programs
• Familiarity with digital engineering, model-based engineering, CAD/CAE, PLM, or engineering automation workflows
• Background in aerospace, defense, hardware engineering, or industrial software

Why Join Us?

• Shape the future of digital engineering across the DoD and national security ecosystem
• Lead the technical motion at the intersection of AI, engineering infrastructure, and multi-domain collaboration
• Work directly engineering leadership and mission stakeholders on high-impact deployments
• Influence the product roadmap through real mission needs and demo feedback
• Join a high-trust, mission-driven team building transformative technology

Benefits
We offer highly competitive benefits, including:

Health and Family

• Medical/Dental/Vision
• Employee Premiums are 100% Company Paid
• Life Insurance
• Flexible Work Hours
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) with federal government holidays

Financial

• Competitive Compensation
• 401k
• Company Stock Options
• Home Office Setup Budget

Learning

• Reimbursement for approved trainings and subscriptions
• Conferences (travel, lodging, and fees)

Note - some benefits are not available to interns or contractors.

Thank you for your interest in Istari. Expect to hear back from us soon with next steps.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

This role will also qualify for a variable incentive plan.