Description
Join Zendesk as a Hunter AE, where you'll create and close durable net-new business by turning priority prospects into customers through disciplined prospecting, consultative discovery, and executive selling.
Key Responsibilities:
- Create and maintain enough qualified net-new pipeline to meet or exceed quota through targeted outbound, inbound conversion, partner routes, and disciplined territory planning.
- Lead a repeatable prospecting-to-close process: discovery, qualification, value mapping, mutual action planning, business-case development, negotiation, contracting, and close.
- Translate customer business priorities, service-operation challenges, and transformation goals into a credible Zendesk platform and AI value proposition.
- Build executive and multi-threaded alignment across business, technology, security, finance, procurement, and the economic buying committee.
- Own commercial strategy, deal progression, and negotiation within approved guardrails; protect customer value and delivery credibility.
- Orchestrate Solution Engineers, Product Specialists, Marketing, SDR/BDR partners, ecosystem partners, and leadership to improve win probability.
- Maintain accurate CRM data, pipeline health, forecast discipline, and early risk visibility; make decisions based on evidence rather than optimism.
- Document customer goals, stakeholders, use cases, commitments, and success conditions for a clean handoff; return market, competitor, and buyer insight to improve the go-to-market motion.
Requirements:
- Day one: a genuine new-business orientation, targeted prospecting discipline, and ability to create qualified demand.
- Day one: consultative discovery that uncovers business problems, urgency, stakeholders, decision criteria, and measurable outcomes before positioning product.
- Day one: executive and multi-threaded selling that earns trust with business, technical, financial, security, and procurement stakeholders.
- Day one: commercial acumen to build ROI narratives, manage deal economics, negotiate thoughtfully, and qualify out when the fit is not credible.
- Day one: CRM, forecast, and operating discipline; the ability to inspect facts, surface risk early, and maintain mutual accountability.
- Developable: deeper Zendesk platform, AI, and service-operations fluency; more advanced industry narratives, partner-led selling, and complex deal strategy.
- Differentiating: the ability to shape the customer's problem, create demand where none exists, and mobilize a buying committee without overselling.
- Scarcity: repeated success closing large, complex net-new deals with executive access, competitive strategy, and strong business-case construction.
Experience and Qualifications:
- Experience range: Typically 8–12 years of related experience.
- Relevant background: demonstrated capability in complex B2B SaaS new-business selling, value-based discovery, and commercial deal ownership.
- Customer impact: demonstrated ownership of outcomes, not only activity; evidence should show decision quality, follow-through, and measurable customer or commercial impact.
- Commercial proof: evidence of prospecting discipline, quota attainment or equivalent growth results, executive engagement, and complex deal judgment.
- AI and platform fluency: ability to discuss AI, automation, service operations, and platform value credibly and know when specialist depth is required.
What Makes This Role Distinctive:
You will help customers move from a service challenge to a decision-ready case for change. The strongest candidates combine disciplined new-business craft with the ability to make an AI-powered, platform-level future state credible to executive buyers.
Compensation:
The US annualized OTE range for this position is $111,000.00-$167,000.00 with a pay mix of 60/40 (base/commission).