
Account Executive, Commercial at Kong (London England, United Kingdom)
Kong· London England, United Kingdom·
Role details
Kong at a glance
Kong runs the unified API and AI platform that connects, secures, governs, and monetizes APIs, events, and AI traffic.
Kong provides a unified API and AI platform. Its open-source Kong Gateway handles API traffic at the edge, while Kong Konnect adds a managed control plane to design, secure, observe, and monetize APIs, events, and AI requests across any cloud. The AI Gateway extends the same governance model to LLMs, MCP servers, and agents.
$345M raised · latest: Series E · $175M · 2024 (at $2B valuation) · backed by Tiger Global, Balderton, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures
Job description
Are you ready to unlock intelligence? If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
About the Role: We are looking for an experienced sales professional, ideally with open source experience who will be selling into mid market enterprise accounts. The ideal candidate has been a part of the sales efforts for other early-stage enterprise products in an entrepreneurial setting. The Account Executive will be integral to our growth plan and in acquiring new customers. Kong’s Account Executive will be the primary point of contact and the face of Kong for our prospects.
What You'll be doing:
- Sell Kong Konnect Platform on Kong’s Commercial sales team.
- Meet and/or exceed individual quota, objectives and KPIs.
- Take ownership to build and manage your book of business, which includes understanding and documenting the buying criteria and process, determining the appropriate motion and patterns, ensuring pipeline accuracy based on evidence, and working the leads to closure.
- Collaborate and leverage an ecosystem of resources including pre sales, post sales, channel partners, customer success and leadership to promote Kong and drive new business.
What You'll bring:
- A true desire to see customers benefit from the investment they make with Kong.
- 2+ years of experience in direct sales experience selling enterprise software to small to mid-size organisations ideally with open source, APIs, and/or infrastructure software.
- Effective communicator and strong interpersonal skills.
- Excellent negotiation, presentation and closing skills.
- Experience with fast growing startups is a plus.
- Strong background in territory planning and revenue generated from outbound pipeline.
- You have a measurable track record in new business development and over achieving sales targets.
- Knowledge of MEDDIC and Challenger methodologies is a plus.
Preferred:
- A top performer with experience hunting and closing net new logos.
- Experienced with creatively sourcing companies outside of your CRM.
- You have previously worked in an early-stage company and you know how to navigate and be successful in a fast-growing organization.
- Motivated, collaborative, driven and results oriented.
#LI-JM3
About Kong: Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
Why work at Kong
- Remote‑first culture – 600+ employees across 25+ countries; strong emphasis on global collaboration.
- Perks & benefits (from careers page):
- Stock options for most employees
- 4‑week paid sabbatical every 5 years
- Flexible time off
- Home office stipend
- Regular “unplug days” (company‑wide long weekends)
- Virtual events (Donut chats, trivia, fitness challenges)
- Engineering culture – values “owners, explorers, real, unstoppable” and encourages individual innovation. Focus on shipping fast and high trust.
- Growth trajectory – company is scaling (+23.5% headcount YoY) and is a unicorn with clear product‑market fit in a hot market (AI + API management).
- Open roles – 93 open positions across engineering, sales, solutions, customer success, and marketing.