# Business Development Director

**Company:** [OpenRouter](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/openrouter)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Business Development
**Experience:** 8+ years
**Skills:** Partnerships, Business Development, strategic alliances, technical integrations, api platforms, ai/ml ecosystem, Negotiation, Data Governance, Cloud Infrastructure, Product-Led Growth, sales-led growth
**Posted:** 2026-07-28

> Lead development and execution of OpenRouter's partner strategy as the first partnerships hire. Build and manage strategic AI/ML platform, distribution, and ISV partnerships to drive integrations, customer adoption, and revenue growth.

## Job Description

## Key Responsibilities
- Build strategic platform and product partnerships with complementary AI/ML companies to drive technical integrations, expand distribution, and accelerate mutual customer adoption.
- Track partner contributions to customer acquisition, product usage, and expansion across the full partnership lifecycle to drive partnership revenue and growth targets.
- Analyze the AI/ML ecosystem to identify priority partners, competitive dynamics, and emerging opportunities while maintaining expertise in AI infrastructure and partnership trends.
- Navigate multi-sided platform dynamics by coordinating across internal teams, technology partners, and customers to structure agreements that create mutual value.
- Negotiate complex partnership agreements, including technical integrations, data privacy terms, GTM commitments, and commercial structure, while building scalable onboarding frameworks.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Legal to prioritize partner integrations, develop co-marketing initiatives, and balance partner needs with product strategy.

## Qualifications
- 8+ years in partnerships, business development, or strategic alliances, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership role building partnership programs from scratch.
- Experience managing strategic partnerships with leading technology providers (e.g., AI model providers, API platforms, SaaS companies), including developing technical integrations, API distribution strategies, and product-led growth (PLG) or sales-led growth (SLG) initiatives.
- Proven track record scaling consumption-based or usage-based partnership models (API platforms, developer tools, infrastructure) with measurable impact on product adoption and revenue ($10M+ in influenced consumption/revenue).
- Strong commercial and legal acumen with experience negotiating complex agreements involving data governance, SLAs, consumption economics, and technical integration commitments.
- Technical background or deep fluency with API platforms, developer tooling, and cloud infrastructure—able to engage credibly with engineering teams on integration architecture, authentication patterns, and data flows.
- Strategic thinker who can balance long-term ecosystem building with short-term execution, comfortable with ambiguity and building from zero to one.

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