Founding Account Executive (Europe)
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At a glance
Job overview
Sphere is hiring a Founding Account Executive (Europe). Sphere is a trade compliance AI startup backed by a16z and YC, building a system that ingests global trade law to deliver reliable compliance determinations. The company operates with a small, globally distributed team, requiring five days in‑office work in San Francisco, and is expanding its European GTM function.
Key focus areas include Run full‑cycle sales, including outbound outreach, closing new logos, and expanding existing accounts, Flex across segments, handling high‑velocity SMB cycles and complex mid‑market sales, and Build GTM playbooks, assets, and revops stack alongside the Founder.
Successful candidates bring Experience Selling B2B SaaS Into SMB And Mid-Market Segments, Early-Stage Startup Experience, and Based In Europe. Important skills include Full-Cycle Sales, Outbound Sales, Closing New Logos, Expanding Existing Accounts, Flex Across Segments, and High-Velocity SMB Cycles. Preferred (not required): Selling To CFO/Finance Roles.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
ABOUT SPHERE
Every breakthrough in trade infrastructure has followed the same pattern: reduce a transaction cost, expand the market. Containerization for goods. SWIFT for money. Stripe for payments. Compliance is one of the last and largest — and the hardest, because trade rules aren't data to be looked up. They're a complex adaptive system with 190+ sovereign jurisdictions, in different languages, changing constantly, reacting to each other.
Sphere built the system that solves it. Our AI (TRAM) ingests global trade law, interprets it, resolves conflicts across jurisdictions, and produces compliance determinations more reliable than human experts. We handle the entire lifecycle — calculation, registration, filing, remittance — at millisecond latency with zero downtime.
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Backed by a16z and YC. $21M Series A, 30%+ month-over-month growth, customers include ElevenLabs, Replit, Deel, Runway, and Lovable.
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Small team, global surface area. Everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. San Francisco, five days in office.
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The problem keeps compounding. Expanding into input tax, withholding, e-invoicing, tariffs — each multiplies the complexity. Tens of millions of transactions today, billions ahead.
THE ROLE
Sphere is looking for a Founding Account Executive based in Europe to work closely with the Founder to not only help target European mid-market and enterprise businesses, but also build out our broader EMEA-based GTM function.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
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Full-cycle sales: run outbound, close new logos, and expand existing accounts.
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Flex across segments: high-velocity SMB cycles and complex mid-market sales.
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Build GTM playbooks, assets, and revops stack with the Founder.
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Help shape and scale our global sales team.
REQUIREMENTS
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Proven experience selling B2B SaaS into SMB and mid-market segments.
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Early-stage startup experience (building processes from scratch).
NICE TO HAVES
- Experience selling to the CFO / Finance roles in Europe
WHO YOU ARE
You'll thrive here if:
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You're a Dog. You've been underestimated, gone through struggle, and never stopped running. You have a chip on your shoulder and enormous drive. You look at Stripe, Deel, and Flexport all punting on compliance and think: good, that means the opportunity is ours. Hunger beats pedigree.
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Early stage is in your bones. You've built things where there's no playbook and nobody handing you the answer. You define the problem instead of waiting for instructions.
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You own it end to end. Give you a goal and you figure out your own path. Small team, global surface area — everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. No one tells you how.
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You believe speed and accuracy are both possible. We're building a complex product that requires robustness and 100% uptime, and we have to build at our customers' pace. Move fast. Don't break things. Both.
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Being in the room is a feature, not a cost. Five days in SF isn't a policy, it's how the work gets done. The speed and density of collaboration we need doesn't survive over video.
This won't be a fit if:
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You need structure handed to you or ambiguity feels draining rather than motivating
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You want to manage people more than own hard problems (we're a flat, experienced team — everyone builds)
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You're used to "good enough" shipping (small errors have outsized impact here)
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Being in the room five days a week feels like a cost instead of a benefit
You've read the whole posting — now see how you match it.