--- title: 'Account Executive at Kernel' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-kernel-san-francisco-7h92f9x7djp1' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-13' --- # Account Executive at Kernel - **Company:** Kernel - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-12 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-13 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/usekernel/eefe949b-7bd6-4983-b21e-d8549c46c0ce ## Job description ## About Kernel Kernel is crazy fast, open source browser infrastructure for AI agents. We handle autoscaling, observability, and the messy details of web interaction, so developers can focus on what their agents do instead of how they do it. Teams at Cash App, Rye, and 5000+ others use Kernel for deep research, QA automation, and real-time web analysis. We've raised $22M from Accel, YC, and Vercel. If you're interested in building critical infrastructure for agents on the web, we'd love to chat. ## About the role You'll be one of the first members of a lean sales team. You'll own the full sales cycle for Kernel, from initial conversation to closed deal. That means prospecting and qualifying the right accounts, running discovery that gets to the real problems a customer is solving, and building relationships with the developers and technical leaders who'll rely on Kernel for their production systems. This is a technical-leaning AE role. You'll spend time understanding prospects' technical requirements, not just running a deck, and you'll lean on customer success & solutions, engineering, and product team members to keep technical questions from slowing down a deal. ## What you'll do - Own your pipeline end-to-end: prospecting, qualification, discovery, negotiation, and close - Build and manage relationships with developers, engineering leaders, and technical decision-makers evaluating Kernel for production use - Partner with solutions engineering, customer engineering/success, and engineering as needed to scope technical requirements and keep deals moving from demo to signed contract - Give the team an accurate, up-to-date read on your pipeline and deal status - Represent the voice of the customer internally, feeding market and competitive intelligence back into product and go-to-market strategy - Help define what a repeatable sales motion looks like at Kernel — you're building the playbook, not just running one ## What we're looking for - 4+ years of closing experience in a sales role, ideally selling technical or developer-facing products - Comfortable selling to technical buyers: you don't need to write code, but you can hold your own in a conversation about architecture, APIs, and how a product actually gets used - Experience running a full-cycle sales process, from outbound or inbound lead through negotiation and close - High tolerance for ambiguity — most of our customers are building things that don't have a playbook yet - You use AI daily in your own workflow, and are excited to be in an AI-native space - Excellent written and verbal communication, with the judgment to know when to loop in teammates versus close on your own Even better: - Experience selling developer tools, infrastructure, or API-first products - Familiarity with AI agents, browser automation, or the broader agent tooling landscape - Prior experience at an early-stage startup where you helped build the sales process, not just execute one ## What you can expect as a Kernel - Industry-competitive salary - Above market equity - Premium medical + dental and vision coverage + dependent coverage - Small, trusting team of experienced GTM and engineering staff - Default async with minimal bureaucracy - Daily lunches on us - Unlimited PTO - 401k + company match - Relocation assistance ## About Kernel ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kernel builds crazy fast, open-source infrastructure for AI agents to access and interact with the internet using cloud-hosted browsers. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, United States - **Founded**: 2025 - **Founders**: Rafael Garcia (Co-Founder & CEO) and Catherine Jue (Co-Founder & CTO) ## Core Business - Primary industry: AI Infrastructure / Developer Tools / Browser Automation - Target customers: B2B – engineering teams building web agents, browser automations, and AI applications (trusted by Cash App, Framer, Rye, and 3,000+ teams) - Mission or purpose: To make cloud infrastructure 100x better by providing well-designed, opinionated tooling that unlocks superpowers for the next generation of AI applications. ## Products & Services - **Kernel Browser API**: An API to instantly launch sandboxed, cloud-based Chromium browsers in under 30ms (cold start) with sub-150ms cold starts on managed headful browsers. Supports headless, stealth, GPU, and profile modes. Integrates with Playwright, Puppeteer, Browser Use, and Computer Use frameworks. - **Stealth Mode**: Built-in residential proxies and automatic CAPTCHA solving for web agents. - **Observability Suite**: Session recording (live view), video replays (MP4), full logs, and screenshots for debugging. - **Agent Runtime (App Platform)**: A serverless compute service to deploy and invoke agent loops on demand or via scheduled events, co-located with browsers to minimize latency. - **Auth & Session Management**: Persistent sessions that maintain cookies and auth across invocations; managed authentication for agents. - **Open-Source SDKs & Tools**: `kernel-images` (Go, 924 stars), `hypeman` (multi-hypervisor VM runtime), `kernel-mcp-server` (MCP server for browser automation), CLI, and Node SDK. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$22M** (Series A led by Accel, backed by Y Combinator S25 batch) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Accel, Y Combinator (S25), Tyler Bosmeny (Primary Partner at YC). Trusted by Cash App, Framer, Rye, and 3,000+ teams. - **Growth Signals**: Raised $22M in Series A shortly after founding in 2025; Y Combinator batch S25; trusted by major fintech and design platforms; open-source repos gaining traction (kernel-images at 924 stars); team growing from 6 to ~15 employees rapidly. ## Competitive Advantages - **Performance Moat**: Sub-30ms browser spin-ups and sub-150ms cold starts on managed browsers – significantly faster than competitors. - **Open-Source Core**: Transparent, community-driven development with 61 public repos, fostering trust and adoption. - **Full-Stack Observability**: Live view, video replays, and logs built-in from day one – not an afterthought. - **Stealth & Compliance**: Built-in residential proxies, auto-CAPTCHA solving, SOC 2 compliant, and HIPAA-ready. - **Founder-Market Fit**: CEO Rafael Garcia was co-founder/CTO of Clever (YC S12, exited for $500M), bringing deep infrastructure and scaling experience. CTO Catherine Jue was co-founder of Sway Finance (YC S16) and led Cash App’s forward-deployed engineering team. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the browser infrastructure platform to support more AI agent frameworks and use cases - Expanding the open-source ecosystem and developer community - Building out the agent runtime platform for serverless deployment - Deepening enterprise partnerships and compliance certifications - Growing the engineering team to accelerate product development ## Why Work Here - **Early-stage impact**: Join a well-funded Series A startup (15 employees) backed by top-tier investors – opportunity to shape the product and culture from an early stage - **Founding team pedigree**: Work alongside founders who have built and exited a $500M company (Clever) and led engineering at Cash App - **Technical challenges**: Build cutting-edge infrastructure for AI agents – browser virtualization, stealth proxies, serverless compute, and observability at scale - **Open-source culture**: 61 public repos, active community engagement, and commitment to transparent development - **Work environment**: In-office culture based in San Francisco (4 locations in the US), with a focus on well-designed tooling and developer experience - **Perks**: Competitive compensation at a well-funded startup; perks and benefits typical of an early-stage YC company (details available on Built In) - **Current openings**: Infrastructure Engineer, Product Engineer, Backend Engineer, DevRel Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Customer Engineer – indicating strong growth and diverse team needs ## Sources 1. [Y Combinator – Kernel Profile](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/kernel) 2. [GitHub – Kernel Organization](http://github.com/kernel) 3. [Kernel Documentation](https://www.kernel.sh/docs) 4. [StartupHub.ai – Usekernel Profile](https://www.startuphub.ai/startups/usekernel) 5. [Built In – Kernel Jobs & Careers](https://builtin.com/company/kernel-kernel-sh/jobs) ## Other roles at Kernel - [Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/solutions-engineer-kernel-san-francisco-ktmzc02qgxvg) — San Francisco, CA - [Browser Security Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/browser-security-engineer-kernel-san-francisco-68rz5wz2dyyp) — San Francisco, CA - [Developer Advocate](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-advocate-kernel-san-francisco-4x6qjb4k8rk1) — San Francisco, CA - [DevRel Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/devrel-engineer-kernel-san-francisco-av6mcvxrf9xm) — San Francisco, CA - [Product Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/product-engineer-kernel-san-francisco-ycshr9gtzsnc) — San Francisco, CA - [Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/infrastructure-engineer-kernel-san-francisco-dekqe8rkd7gy) — San Francisco, CA - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-athlete-to-athlete-santa-monica-a8b6y9zray5y) — Santa Monica, CA - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-passport-united-states-stvweh40w33t) — United States - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-quadbridge-vancouver-c22c0daew454) — Vancouver, Canada - [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-avidxchange-inc-remote-fk69130bvk8f)