Federal Account Executive

Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. Today, we power 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions.

In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. We’ve grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate and pay ~$60M to over 30K individuals every month.

As a Federal Account Executive, you will own both new business acquisition and the growth of an existing portfolio of federal agency customers. You will develop and nurture relationships with key stakeholders, identify opportunities, and drive the sales process from prospecting to close across your named book of accounts. This role requires familiarity with the hiring needs and challenges of federal agencies and an understanding of how they function. It will also require strategic thinking, relationship building, and a strong focus on achieving revenue targets across both new and existing business.

• Manage and grow an existing portfolio of federal agency customers while continuously pipelining new, relevant opportunities

• Meet or exceed annual quota across both a customer retention number and a new business target

• Understand a department or agency's business drivers, challenges and pain points

• Navigate federal acquisition processes and contracting, including sole source justification

• Schedule, manage and run meetings with senior economic buyers within the federal government

• Create proposals, executive briefings, and seasonal business reviews for HR and business leaders at federal agencies

• Generate scalable pipeline and revenue to achieve 100% of annual quota attainment

• Partner closely with Customer Success and Program Management teammates to ensure strong customer outcomes post-sale

• Utilize Salesforce.com on a daily basis to manage activity, leads, follow-up and pipeline

• 3–4+ years of Account Executive experience selling SaaS-based solutions, ideally HR tech into federal government or public sector organizations

• Experience with both new business acquisition and customer retention in a hybrid AE motion

• Familiarity with federal acquisition processes and contracting; SLED background considered for the right candidate

• Success pitching and closing deals in the six-figure range

• Experience navigating and building relationships within federal departments and agencies

• A strong history of quota attainment and consistent performance

• Excellent customer-facing skills and comfort managing senior government stakeholders

• Experience preparing account plans and business value narratives

• Proven ability to collaborate successfully with a go-to-market team