Head of Sales, SaaS

Location:

Houston (with travel as needed)

Start Date:

ASAP

🚀 Our Vision

At whitson, we’re building the #1 modern petroleum engineering software company in the world. No modesty here — we mean it. We’re not just building a tool or a product; we’re building a platform. Something that feels inevitable when you use it.

We’re doing to petroleum engineering what Windows did to DOS — taking the industry from slow, clunky, legacy desktop systems to seamless, web-first experiences, powered by real-time APIs, Snowflake, Databricks, and the best that modern data workflows can offer.

Why now? The industry is at a tipping point: data is exploding, cloud-native workflows are becoming the new standard, and engineers are demanding tools that match the speed and sophistication of their thinking. The timing is perfect for whitson to redefine what’s possible.

The endgame? Every petroleum engineer in the world running on some flavor of whitson software.

💼 The Role

We’re at a crucial turning point — shifting from a predominantly inbound to a robust outbound sales motion. That’s where you come in.

As our Head of Sales, you will be the ultimate "player-coach." You’ll be out front: picking up the phone, booking the meetings, closing deals, and showing the team how it’s done. You’ll define, lead, and execute our outbound strategy while staying deeply hands-on with day-to-day deals. You’ll set the pace, culture, and standards for how we engage customers and grow revenue.

🔥 What We're Looking For

- A hunter mindset. You create and drive opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to you.

- A hands-on closer. You thrive on negotiations, renewals, rev ops, and forecasting — and you lead by example.

- A relationship builder. You treat relationships as long-term investments and love building deep client trust.

- A partner mindset. You enjoy rolling up your sleeves and truly owning the sales process from start to finish.

- A long-term thinker. You embrace our mindset that every business relationship is a multi-year partnership. We don’t take shortcuts for short-term gains; we keep our "long-term goggles" on, always asking, "What decisions today will set us up for success five years from now?"

⚠️ What We’re

Not

Looking For

- Someone who prioritizes setting up tools and processes over actively engaging with customers and driving revenue hands-on.

- Someone who prefers to manage from the sidelines instead of selling directly.

- Someone who hides behind strategy decks and dashboards instead of picking up the phone.

- Someone who wants to build a big team so they can delegate everything and avoid direct selling.

🌱 Culture & Ethos

We fly economy. We stay in humble hotels. We’re frugal with ourselves. Frugality, to us, isn’t about being cheap — it’s about focus. We believe constraints foster creativity, clarity, and better decisions.

We believe in building extremely intimate, trust-based relationships with our clients. We spend time deeply understanding their needs, solving real problems, and becoming a true partner rather than just another vendor.

We’re in the game for the long run. We treat every client interaction as the beginning of a decades-long relationship, not a quick transaction. We want someone who shares this mindset and is excited to build a legacy alongside us.

At whitson, no job is beneath anyone. We’re a scrappy, high-velocity environment. We want someone who not only says they’ll "roll up their sleeves" — but has the track record to prove it. You’ll work closely with product, engineering, and leadership to shape the future of our business.

✅ Requirements

- Deep experience leading and executing SaaS enterprise sales motions, ideally in technical or engineering-heavy industries.

- Proven ability to drive new business and close complex, high-value deals.

- Exceptional communication and storytelling skills — you can clearly articulate value to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

- A strong personal network and credibility with industry decision-makers is a big plus.

- Comfort in a startup or scale-up environment — you thrive in ambiguity and aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty.

💬 Final Note

We’re not looking for someone to simply "run" sales — we’re looking for someone to help

it. If you want to help redefine an industry and create something legendary, we’d love to meet you.

💬 Compensation & Upside

Compensation for this role will be heavily performance-driven. We’re looking for someone who is excited to lean into our stock option program as the main source of asymmetric upside. Simply put: if the company succeeds, you succeed. This structure ensures true alignment and offers the potential for meaningful wealth creation alongside the company’s growth.