Strategic Partnerships Lead
Leads complex strategic partnerships across AI, cloud, commerce, and enterprise software, from deal development and negotiation through launch and growth. Requires 8+ years of commercial agreement experience, strong technical fluency, and executive-level cross-functional leadership.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Own strategic partnerships end to end, from initial conversations through agreement, launch, and growth.
- Identify and develop partnerships across AI, cloud, commerce, and enterprise software.
- Build business cases by sizing opportunities, defining required product and engineering investment, and recommending whether to proceed.
- Lead negotiations and structure commercial agreements, including revenue share, embedded pricing, co-sell commitments, and marketplace terms.
- Develop senior partner relationships and engage Vercel executives when appropriate.
- Lead cross-functional teams across Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Legal to launch signed agreements.
- Advise leadership on ecosystem trends and implications for the product roadmap.
- Establish deal milestones and success measures, and stop initiatives that are not working.
Requirements
- 8+ years developing, negotiating, and executing complex commercial agreements, ideally at a platform, infrastructure, cloud, or developer tools company.
- Track record of initiating unprecedented partnerships with significantly larger companies.
- Experience structuring technically complex deals involving platform integrations, embedded or white-labeled products, licensing, infrastructure, and compute commitments.
- Ability to discuss agents, inference, model routing, and cloud infrastructure credibly with product and engineering teams.
- Experience creating and driving strategy and securing organizational investment.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams without direct management authority.
- Strong ownership, judgment, decisiveness, and comfort with ambiguity.
- Excellent written and verbal communication with executives.
Nice-to-haves
- Partnerships experience with or at a hyperscaler, frontier AI lab, or large commerce or enterprise software platform.
- Experience structuring technology licensing, OEM, or embedded distribution agreements.
- Technical background in engineering, solutions architecture, or technical product before moving into commercial work.
Compensation and Benefits
- Competitive compensation package, including equity.
- Inclusive healthcare package.
- Mentorship and professional development opportunities.
- Flexible time off.
- Equipment and work-from-home budget.
Skills
Strategic Partnerships, Commercial Agreements, Contract Negotiation, Platform Integrations, Technology Licensing, Oem, Revenue Sharing, Cloud Infrastructure, Model Routing, Product Strategy, Cross-Functional Leadership, Marketplace Terms
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