PaaS / SaaS Account Executive - Japan

About ai&

ai& is a new global AI technology company dedicated to meeting the world's growing demand for AI. Our vision is twofold: to serve as a premier AI lab specializing in localization, and to act as a global infrastructure and compute provider. We are building a unified, optimized global platform that integrates next-generation data centers and infrastructure, heterogeneous compute serving, and advanced model services. We believe that the most effective way to build and scale AI is to own the stack from top to bottom.

At ai&, we empower small teams with the autonomy needed to tackle significant challenges. Our approach is to deconstruct large problems into manageable components and solve complex issues collaboratively. We seek highly motivated, mission-driven individuals who demonstrate strong personal agency. We value curiosity as the foundation of talent, and we are looking for people eager to develop alongside our evolving technology and expanding business.

We are actively hiring worldwide, with presence in Tokyo, SF, Austin, and Toronto. We are more than happy to meet exceptional talent where they are.

Build.io is an ai& company.

Build cloud platform for teams who want to ship product, not manage infrastructure.

AI and data centers are dominating the developer experience today. Join a team that is delivering leading-edge tooling for teams that build products at speed. Build.io provides a modern PaaS for companies that want to deploy and scale applications without managing the underlying infrastructure, supporting customers across the US, EU and Japan.

We are looking for an experienced Account Executive to help grow Build.io’s presence in Japan. You’ll work closely with prospective customers, partners, developers and technical teams to understand their infrastructure needs and show how Build.io can help them build and ship faster.

This role is suited to someone who understands how technology companies buy software, is comfortable selling technical products, and can build strong relationships across both Japanese and international organizations.

Our small but growing team includes software and infrastructure engineers, hardware and AI delivery experts, security specialists, active open source contributors and commercial team members.

If you enjoy working with technical customers, developing new business, and helping companies adopt modern cloud infrastructure, we welcome you to apply.

The Role

You’ll be responsible for developing and closing new business for Build.io in Japan, working across the full sales cycle from prospecting and qualification through technical evaluation, commercial negotiation and close.

This is a hands-on role in a growing business. You’ll work closely with engineering, product and leadership to understand customer requirements, coordinate technical evaluations and migrations, and help shape our go-to-market approach in Japan.

Because Build.io is an international company serving both Japanese and global customers, this role requires strong professional communication skills in both Japanese and English.

What You’ll Do

● Develop and manage a pipeline of prospective customers in Japan
● Own the full sales cycle, from initial outreach and qualification through demos, proposals, negotiation and close
● Build relationships with engineering leaders, CTOs, founders, IT teams and other technical and business stakeholders
● Understand customer infrastructure, cloud and application deployment needs and position Build.io appropriately
● Work closely with technical team members on product demos, proof-of-concepts, migrations and customer implementations
● Identify opportunities to expand existing customer relationships and increase platform usage
● Develop relationships with implementation partners, resellers and other technology partners in Japan
● Maintain accurate pipeline, forecasting and customer information
● Gather customer and market feedback and share insights with the product and engineering teams
● Represent Build.io at relevant industry events, customer meetings and community activities
● Collaborate with the broader ai& and Build.io teams across Japan and international markets

What We’re Looking For

● 3+ years of B2B SaaS, cloud, infrastructure, developer tooling or enterprise software sales experience
● Demonstrated experience managing and closing B2B sales opportunities
● Native or business-level Japanese communication skills
● Professional working proficiency in English, with the ability to communicate effectively with an international team
● Strong communication, presentation and relationship-building skills
● Comfortable speaking with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
● Ability to understand technical products and translate technical capabilities into customer value
● Self-motivated and comfortable working in a small, fast-moving team where you may need to roll up your sleeves across different parts of the sales process
● Strong ownership of pipeline, follow-up and customer relationships

Nice to Have

● Experience selling PaaS, IaaS, cloud infrastructure, DevOps, developer tooling or other technical SaaS products
● Existing relationships within the Japanese startup, SaaS, enterprise technology or developer ecosystem
● Experience selling to engineering leaders, developers, CTOs or infrastructure teams
● Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure or Heroku
● Familiarity with containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD and modern application deployment workflows
● Experience working with channel partners, resellers or systems integrators
● Experience working at an international or US-headquartered technology company

Hiring Process

We’ll review all resumes and reach out to successful candidates to start the following process:

● Initial conversation to align on background, role fit and answer initial questions
● Sales interview focused on previous SaaS or technology sales experience, pipeline management and customer engagement
● Final 2 interviews with leadership