Key Account Leader, Mid Cities West

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors to first responders , soldiers in battlefield scenarios , and beyond .

About the Team: Public safety is where drone technology faces the highest stakes. Agencies across the country are standing up Drone as First Responder (DFR) programs that put an aircraft over an emergency within seconds of a call. As drone programs move from the age of tools to the age of infrastructure, we are expanding our public safety sales team to meet that demand.

About the role: As a Key Account Leader, Mid-City at Skydio, you will own a territory of mid-sized public safety agencies with 41 to 100 sworn personnel. This is a full-cycle, quota-carrying role: you find the opportunities, run the deals, and close them. Your number is yours, and so is the territory plan behind it.

You will be the person an agency trusts with one of the most visible programs it will stand up this decade. That means understanding how the agency actually works, who has to say yes, and what it will take to get there, then running a process that gets the program funded, approved, and deployed. You will report to the Key Account Director, Mid-City, and work alongside Sales Engineering, Business Development, Channel, Marketing, Strategic Relationships, Government Relations, and Mission Success.

Most agencies in this segment need a council or commission to approve a program, so winning the chief is often only half the deal. You will help your champion build the case that gets through a public vote, and you will learn to read a council agenda as closely as a pipeline report.

We sell autonomous flying robots and the artificial intelligence that powers them. Every seller here uses AI tools as a normal part of running a territory: researching agencies, preparing for meetings, responding to RFPs, and analyzing pipeline. We expect you to as well.

This is a highly competitive market, and much of the work happens alongside our channel. You will sell against incumbent platforms and well-funded challengers, and win on the merits.

Location: Remote, Western U.S.

How we work

These are the standards we hire to, and they describe how the best people on this team already work.

High integrity. Public safety is a tight-knit community. Chiefs and Sheriffs talk to each other, and a reputation for straight answers travels fast. We sell what the ecosystem is actually capable of, we are clear about where the product is today and where it's headed, and we win on our own merits. There's no compromise here.

Sales is a team sport. One team. No lone wolves. Deals are won by account leaders, sales engineering, business development, channel, marketing, strategic relationships, government relations, and mission success pulling in the same direction, and our partners are part of that team, not a channel to be managed around. The best people here care more about the collective number than their own slice of it.

Great conversationalists. This is the craft of the job: asking better questions than anyone else in the room, listening for what a chief or sheriff isn't saying, real curiosity about how an agency operates. Not polish, not a rehearsed pitch. Trust in this market is built one honest conversation at a time, and it is the thing competitors cannot copy.

Curious, and fluent with the tools. Everyone on this team uses AI as a normal part of their work: researching agencies, preparing for meetings, analyzing pipeline, drafting and then editing. That takes taste more than technical skill: knowing what a quality result looks like, describing a problem precisely enough to get it, and catching the tool when it is confidently wrong. The same muscle makes a great seller. Discovery is specifying the problem; qualification is checking the output. We hire people who are curious about how things work, whether that's an agency's budget, a council's politics, or the aircraft's autonomy, and who have spent the last two years embracing AI rather than waiting to be told to use it.

How you'll make an impact

Build pipeline

Own your territory plan: know the agencies in it, which are likely to move this year, and why

Generate your own pipeline through outbound, events, and partners rather than waiting on inbound demand

Get in early and shape the criteria the agency will use to make its decision

Win

Run full-cycle deals from first conversation to award: discovery, demonstration, proof of value, proposal, procurement, and approval

Qualify with MEDDPICC rigor, and walk away from deals that are not real

Build consensus across the people who have to say yes: the chief or sheriff, the city or county manager, finance, procurement, and the council or commission

Sell against incumbents and challengers: frame Skydio's unique differentiators, run displacement plays, and defend accounts under attack

Equip your champion to take a program through council or commission approval: the budget case, the community case, and the timing

Partner

Sell with and through channel partners, and structure deals that get customers to yes

Bring in Sales Engineering, Business Development, Government Relations, and Mission Success at the right moment, and keep them pointed at the same outcome

Hand off cleanly to Mission Success after award and stay close enough to the account to grow it

Run your territory

Forecast honestly and keep your pipeline clean enough that your Director can trust it

Use AI tools daily for agency research, call prep, RFP response, and pipeline analysis, and never let anything AI-drafted reach a customer unreviewed

Bring what you hear in the field back to the team: competitive intelligence, product gaps, and what is changing in how agencies buy

What makes you a good fit

Required

3+ years carrying an individual quota in enterprise software, hardware, or SaaS sales, with attainment you can state year by year, including the year you missed and what you changed

Personal success running full-cycle, multi-stakeholder deals from first conversation to signed contract

A record of building your own pipeline, and a clear view of how much of your closed business you sourced

Disciplined qualification and a forecast your manager could trust

Fluency selling with and through channel partners

Daily, systematic use of AI tools in your own work, and at least one workflow, analysis, or tool you built or changed in the last two years that made you measurably better (we will ask you to show it, not describe it)

Presence with agency leadership and high personal integrity under quota pressure

Ability to travel at least 50% of the time, and based in Western U.S.

Preferred

Experience in public safety, specifically law enforcement, fire, or emergency management

Experience selling into SLED customers, including getting a program approved by a council or commission

You have built something with AI that other people use, whether a research tool, an analysis, or a workflow, and you can talk about what the first version got wrong

Curiosity that shows: you can explain how something outside sales works (an agency budget, an airspace waiver, the aircraft's autonomy) in plain language, and you learn fast

Familiarity with MEDDPICC, Salesforce, Clari, BGov, GovWin, Slack, and Google Workspace

UAV, robotics, or emerging technology background, and comfort in a fast-moving environment

What to expect from our process

We run a structured process and we tell you what it is. A 30-minute conversation with the hiring manager. A deep dive on your selling record: attainment year by year, how you built pipe