Founding Technical Account Executive

Founding Account Executive
Location: Berlin, Germany
Work setup: On-site
Language requirement: Native-level German
About KugelAudio
KugelAudio is a Berlin-based deeptech startup building its own Voice AI models and infrastructure.
We originated from a research project at the Hasso Plattner Institute and joined Y Combinator in 2026.
We are among the first teams in Europe building production-grade Voice AI models from scratch. Our technology already competes with some of the largest Voice AI companies globally, and we work with leading enterprises, telecom providers, and technology platforms across Germany.
Our Mission
Voice is the most natural interface humans have. We believe the future of software will be conversational.
Our mission is to build the Voice AI infrastructure for that future.
Today, most companies building voice products depend on a small number of model providers and have limited control over how those models sound, behave, scale, or handle their data.
We want to change that.
We are building the models and infrastructure that allow companies to create Voice AI products with the quality, control, reliability, and data sovereignty required for real production environments.
Our ambition is simple:
We want the world's voice interfaces to be built on KugelAudio.
And we are only getting started. Over the coming months, we will release additional models across the Voice AI stack and significantly expand what developers and enterprises can build with us.
The Role
Commercially, we are still early.
Sales is currently heavily founder-led. Over the last six months, our founder has consistently generated a double-digit number of meetings per week and built an outbound and event-driven playbook that already works.
Now we want to turn that founder-led motion into a scalable sales organization.
We are looking for our first Founding Account Executives to build that together with us.
As a Founding Account Executive, you will own enterprise sales opportunities from the first interaction through to a signed contract.
This is a full-cycle sales role.
You will not start from zero. We already have working messaging, customer demand, active opportunities, platform relationships, event channels, outbound learnings, and a playbook that consistently generates meetings.
You will work directly with the founder to learn that playbook, improve it, and help turn it into a repeatable sales machine.
At the same time, we expect you to create pipeline yourself.
You will work with inbound demand, product and market signals, event leads, existing accounts, partner signals, and outbound prospecting.
When strong signals exist, your job is to turn them into pipeline.
When they do not, you build pipeline yourself.
What You’ll Do
Build and manage your own enterprise sales pipeline
Prospect into target accounts through calling, email, LinkedIn, events, and other outbound channels
Work with an existing founder-led sales playbook and continuously improve it
Follow up on inbound leads, product usage signals, event conversations, and other buying signals
Build target-account lists and create outbound opportunities when signal volume is lower
Run discovery calls and understand customer use cases, technical environments, and buying processes
Conduct product demos and technical discovery
Guide customers through evaluations and testing
Understand how KugelAudio fits into existing enterprise Voice AI and contact-center stacks
Work with technology platforms and partners where required to create the right integration and commercial setup
Navigate technical, business, security, procurement, and executive stakeholders
Build business cases and present to senior decision-makers
Own commercial negotiations and move opportunities through to close
Keep CRM data, next steps, and pipeline forecasts accurate
Help build the sales processes, playbooks, and systems that do not exist yet
What We’re Looking For
Native-level German
Based in Berlin or willing to relocate to Berlin
Excited to work with us on-site
Strong communication and relationship-building skills
High level of ownership and execution speed
Comfortable with outbound prospecting and cold calling
Able to understand technical products and communicate with technical as well as commercial stakeholders
Structured in managing multiple opportunities at the same time
Persistent and commercially minded
Comfortable working in an early-stage environment where things move quickly and processes are still being built
Previous enterprise sales experience is valuable, but not mandatory.
We are also interested in former founders, people who have built GTM motions before, or technical candidates with unusually strong commercial instincts.
What Success Looks Like
You independently create and manage pipeline.
You can take an account from the first conversation through discovery, technical evaluation, stakeholder management, commercial negotiation, and contract signature.
You use the existing playbook, but you do not simply follow it. You improve it.
Over time, you should be able to own your opportunities end-to-end without depending on the founders to move every deal forward.
Why Join
A sales motion that already works.
This is not a blank-sheet GTM experiment. We have consistently generated double-digit meetings per week over the last six months and will share everything we have learned with you.
A huge market that is still being formed.
Voice AI is moving from demos into real enterprise infrastructure. We are early enough that the companies defining the market are still being built.
We build the technology ourselves.
We do not wrap someone else's API. We train and operate our own Voice AI models.
You will sell more than one product.
Our current models are only the beginning. We are building additional models across the Voice AI stack that will open entirely new customer use cases.
You are joining before the sales organization exists.
You will work directly with the founders and have meaningful influence on our messaging, playbooks, processes, tooling, and go-to-market strategy.
Real ownership.
You won't just inherit a territory and execute someone else's playbook. You will help build the playbook that future KugelAudio sellers will use.
Room to grow.
As KugelAudio and the commercial organization scale, there will be significant opportunity to take on more responsibility.
We offer competitive compensation, uncapped variable compensation, and equity.
How to Apply
Apply directly via LinkedIn or send us a short message explaining why you are interested in the role.
This role is Berlin-based and requires native-level German.

Experience
1+ years

Work arrangement
No