Account Executive

The Company

Duende Software is defining the identity infrastructure category. Trusted by more than 2,500 organizations worldwide, Duende and our flagship product, IdentityServer, help the world's most discerning organizations secure the identities of their users. After a decade of open source innovation, Duende IdentityServer was launched in 2020 to provide the world's most customizable, extensible identity infrastructure for securing human and machine access and identity across modern .NET ecosystems and beyond.

With accelerating demand, strong financial performance, and a product roadmap expanding into federation, non-human identity, and modern developer tooling, Duende is building the revenue team to match its engineering ambition. This Account Executive will be our first dedicated outbound sales hire — and the person who helps define what scalable revenue growth looks like at Duende.

The Role

We are looking for a hungry, technically curious Account Executive to own the mid-market and enterprise sales cycle at Duende for our IdentityServer offering. You will work a strong and consistent stream of inbound leads - generated by a developer community, brand recognition, and growing market awareness - while supplementing that pipeline with disciplined outbound prospecting. Deal sizes range from $20,000 to $120,000+, and your buyers are engineers, architects, and security-focused CTOs who take identity infrastructure seriously. You will be joining a small but structured Growth team. A Customer Operations team handles inbound requests and renewals under $20,000. The Head of Sales & Renewals has owned all larger and more complex deals to date — entirely through inbound execution. As she shifts her focus toward revenue leadership, systems, and strategy, she is handing day-to-day execution of those larger deals to you. You'll have a strong leader in your corner, a warm pipeline to inherit, and the latitude to develop the outbound motion that takes Duende's sales capacity to the next level. This is a role for someone who can convert well-qualified inbound opportunities, take initiative to build their own pipeline on top of that, and help shape what a scalable Duende sales motion looks like.

Inbound Execution

• Respond to and advance a steady stream of qualified inbound leads with urgency, precision, and a consultative approach that earns credibility with technical buyers
• Take ownership of the deal flow that the Head of Sales & Renewals is handing off: maintaining momentum on active opportunities and establishing yourself as the trusted point of contact for new ones
• Qualify thoroughly, advance intentionally, and close with discipline: keeping forecast accuracy high and pipeline data clean in HubSpot

Outbound Pipeline Development

• Supplement inbound volume with self-sourced outbound pipeline: researching target accounts, building sequences, and engaging prospects through the .NET and enterprise identity and security communities where Duende's future customers already live
• Develop your own book of outbound targets in partnership with the Head of Sales & Renewals and Marketing, focusing on accounts that fit Duende's ideal customer profile
• Build relationships in developer communities, conference circuits, and partner networks over time

Sales Execution and Deal Management

• Run a clean, disciplined sales process from discovery through close, leading technical conversations confidently and partnering with engineering resources when depth is needed
• Manage contract negotiations on deals of $40,000–$120,000, with support from the Head of Sales & Renewals on complex or strategic situations
• Collaborate with the Customer Operations team to ensure smooth handoffs and consistent customer experience across deal sizes

Channel and Partner Development

• Play a meaningful role in building out Duende's channel and system integrator (SI) partner program — identifying high-potential partners, establishing working relationships, and developing the early frameworks for a scalable partner motion
• Collaborate with the Head of Sales & Renewals to determine which partner types (VARs, SIs, consultancies, cloud marketplaces) represent the best near-term leverage for Duende's portfolio
• Act as the primary point of contact for partners on co-sell opportunities, ensuring partners are enabled, engaged, and contributing to pipeline

Process and Feedback

• Help define and document what a repeatable Duende sales motion looks like: you'll be contributing to the playbook, not just inheriting one
• Close the loop with Marketing and Customer Success: sharing what you're hearing in market, what objections you're facing, and what's resonating with customers

This is What Success Looks Like in Your First 90 Days

• You've taken ownership of the inbound pipeline and every qualified lead is being worked with consistency and speed - none going cold due to slow follow-up
• You've closed or have in late-stage at least one deal inherited from the current pipeline, and have begun building your first outbound target list
• You know the product well enough to run a compelling discovery and demo without a technical chaperone, and you've established a strong working rhythm with the Customer Operations team
• You've contributed meaningfully to what a Duende sales playbook should look like

The Team

This role will report to the Head of Sales & Renewals, but will partner closely with Marketing, Customer Success, Finance and Operations.

About You

You're early in your career but not new to winning. You've carried a quota, you've closed real deals, and you've done it through preparation and persistence — not luck or a legacy territory. You're the kind of person who researches a prospect before sending the first email, follows up one more time when others have given up, and genuinely finds identity infrastructure interesting (or is determined to become genuinely interested in it). You're comfortable being handed a warm inbound motion and expected to run with it. You're equally comfortable picking up the phone to create an opportunity that didn't exist yesterday. And you're excited to be a part of building something from the ground up.

Experience and Skills

• 2–4 years of B2B sales experience, with demonstrated quota attainment in a closing role
• Experience selling technical products or developer tools; security or infrastructure experience is a meaningful plus
• Comfortable selling to technical buyers (engineers, architects, and CTOs) without necessarily having a technical background of your own
• Some experience self-sourcing pipeline; you haven't exclusively relied on inbound or SDR support to hit your number
• Exposure to channel or partner sales — co-sell motions, SI relationships, or partner-influenced pipeline
• Clean, confident written and verbal communication; you can earn credibility in an email before anyone gets on a call with you
• Familiarity with HubSpot or a comparable CRM; you keep your pipeline current because you understand why it matters

How You Work

• Drive and ownership. You don't wait for deals to close themselves. You move with urgency on inbound and with initiative on outbound
• Intellectual curiosity. The buyers you'll sell to are smart and technical. You get energized by learning, not intimidated by complexity
• Coachability. You have a point of view and you're willing to defend it — but you update your approach when new information warrants it
• Comfort with ambiguity. Duende is a ~25-person company doing the work of a 100-person company. That should feel like opportunity
• Precision with process. You run a tight sales process, document what you learn, and treat CRM hygiene as a professional standard, not an administrative chore

Salary and Location

While the listed location is Austin, Texas, we have a worldwide, distributed team and will consider remote and flexible work arrangements worldwide. Duende's compensation package includes a market-competitive base salary ($70,000–$90,000) with on-target earnings of $120,000–$150,000 and benefits, the specifics of which will be commensurate with candidate experience and fit.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to providing a positive interview experience for every candidate. If accommodations due to a disability or medical condition are needed, please let us know.

How to Apply