What are the responsibilities and job description for the Strategic Account Director, Aerospace, Propulsion & Energy position at nTopology?
nTop gives engineering teams a better way to explore the design space for complex, high-performance products. Engineers use nTop to turn design intent into reusable workflows that generate and evaluate thousands of configurations, connect to the simulation tools they already use, and run at a scale that manual design can't reach. Our customers work across aerospace and defense, turbomachinery, energy, marine, automotive, and industrial applications. More and more of them are building AI and agentic engineering workflows on top of nTop.
We're a small team selling a new way of doing engineering into some of the most demanding organizations in the world. Everyone here carries real ownership, and the work each person does shows up directly in how the company performs.
The RoleWe're hiring a Strategic Account Director to land and expand enterprise deployments across the largest aerospace, propulsion, and energy organizations: airframers, engine OEMs, and power generation manufacturers. You'll report to the SVP of Sales and Customer Success.
nTop already works with several of the most important names in these industries, usually starting with a single team or program. What doesn't exist yet is a repeatable path from that first win to an enterprise-wide deployment. We don't have a playbook to hand you. You'll have broad authority to build one: opening new logos, breaking into new divisions and programs within existing customers, and making nTop part of how these organizations engineer.
This is also a different sale from most engineering software. We're moving away from per-seat licenses towards platform and capacity-based pricing with outcome-focused engineering engagements. Your job is to help customers buy nTop the way they'll actually use it as AI reshapes how they engineer.
What You'll Do
- Source and close your own pipeline. Identify, pursue, and win six- and seven-figure enterprise deals with new logos and new divisions of existing customers.
- Quarterback every deal. You own the deal strategy, the scoping discipline, and the commitments we make. You decide when engineers and executives come in, and you make sure what we promise technically is what we should be delivering.
- Map and expand strategic accounts. Find the programs, business units, and budget holders where nTop creates value, and turn single-team deployments into enterprise agreements.
- Connect the workflow to the business case. Run discovery that ties how a team designs and simulates today to what it costs them in schedule, performance, and win rate, and demonstrate what changes when they can explore the full design space.
- Sell from the top and across the organization. Build trusted relationships with engineering and program executives, and work with the engineers, IT, and procurement teams who make deployment happen.
- Lead the AI conversation. Help customers see where nTop fits as they build AI and agentic engineering workflows, and sell to where their engineering organization is going, not just to how it works today.
- Structure deals creatively. Use platform and capacity-based pricing, multi-year agreements, and pilot-to-production paths. Work through security, export control, and procurement requirements along the way.
- Work as one team. Co-sell with Sales, Business Development, Partnerships, Customer Success, and Field Solutions Engineering. We share relationships across accounts because the goal is nTop winning, not territory.
- Run a tight operation. Use AI tools to work faster, keep your pipeline and forecast accurate in Salesforce, and help define the enterprise sales motion as we build it.
- First 6 months: You've mapped your target accounts, built relationships with senior engineering and program leaders, and built a qualified pipeline you sourced yourself. At least one new-logo or expansion opportunity is in late stage.
- First 12 months: You've closed your first enterprise deals, your pipeline supports a full annual target, and you've helped write the playbook the next strategic sellers will use.
- A track record of sourcing and closing seven-figure enterprise software deals in large, complex engineering organizations, typically 10 years in enterprise sales.
- Experience selling engineering software (CAD, CAE/simulation, PLM, or adjacent engineering and digital engineering software such as MBSE or design automation) to engineering leaders: directors and VPs of engineering, chief engineers, and heads of digital engineering.
- Enough technical depth to run discovery yourself. You understand how engineers move from CAD to simulation and back, where design iteration gets stuck, and can qualify whether a use case is a fit for nTop before bringing in technical resources.
- Executive presence. You're as credible across the table from a VP of Engineering or program executive as you are in a working session with engineers, and you can build trust with senior leaders over a long sales cycle.
- Proof that you've built something without a playbook, such as a new market, a new segment, or the first enterprise deals at an early-stage company.
- U.S. Person status as defined by ITAR, due to export control requirements.
- Approximately 30% travel to customer sites, conferences, and industry events, with heavier stretches around key deals.
- Experience selling AI, simulation-driven, or design automation products, especially on platform, usage, or value-based pricing rather than seat licenses.
- Experience selling into airframers, engine OEMs, or energy manufacturers, and knowing how they buy: who holds budget, how programs fund new tools, and how procurement and export control shape a deal.
- Active security clearance (Secret or higher).
- Exposure to additive manufacturing, generative design, or advanced manufacturing.
- Experience at a high-growth startup or scale-up.
- A degree in engineering, physics, applied math, computer science, or materials science.
- You see a single program win as the start of a much larger, strategic relationship.
- You're commercially rigorous and creative. You know when to follow the process and when to rethink the deal.
- You're low-ego and collaborative. You win by pulling in the right people at the right time and making the team around you better.
- You own your results.
Compensation: the on-target earnings (OTE) range for this role is $340,000 to $380,000 USD, plus equity and benefits. Final compensation depends on seniority and level of industry experience.
Please note that nTop may use AI products to assist in the recruiting process. All resumes are reviewed by, and all employment decisions are made by, nTop's Hiring Team.
If you require a reasonable accommodation during the interview process, please don't hesitate to email us directly.
nTopology is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. nTopology is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities.
Salary : $340,000 - $380,000