Director, Business Development - Frontier AI Partnerships

Qualcomm • Santa Clara, CA

3d • $232,000 - $348,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is seeking a Director of Business Development to support strategic relationships with frontier AI companies and develop cross-business-unit opportunities that advance Qualcomm’s leadership in on-device AI, mobile computing, and intelligent connected devices. The role supports overall account and partnership leads and identifies, shapes, and executes opportunities between Qualcomm and leading AI model and platform companies, particularly to enable next-generation AI experiences across Snapdragon-powered mobile devices and broader edge AI ecosystems.

The successful candidate will bring strategic account support, AI ecosystem fluency, mobile-device expertise, and strong cross-functional influence. The role translates frontier AI companies’ model, product, and enterprise AI roadmaps into actionable opportunities across devices, silicon, software enablement, developer ecosystems, and joint go-to-market motions. It also builds trusted partner relationships and supports disciplined execution.

This is an office-based position in Santa Clara, California, subject to the company’s onsite work policy. It is a U.S.-based position and is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree and 8+ years of sales, business development, product development, or related work experience; or associate’s degree and 10+ years of relevant experience; or high school diploma or equivalent and 12+ years of relevant experience.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex strategic accounts or partnerships with senior executive stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of mobile devices, semiconductor platforms, AI software ecosystems, and OEM business models.
• Working knowledge of generative AI, large language models, AI agents, cloud-to-edge inference, and enterprise AI adoption patterns.
• Proven ability to support and drive cross-functional initiatives across product, engineering, sales, marketing, legal, finance, and executive teams.
• Experience developing business cases, partnership proposals, deal structures, and executive-level recommendations.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, executive presence, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to operate amid ambiguity, create structure, and drive outcomes across organizations without direct authority.
• Office-based work in Santa Clara, California, in compliance with the company’s onsite work policy.
• U.S. work location; visa sponsorship is not available.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, computer science, or a related field; equivalent experience considered.
• MBA or advanced technical degree.
• 12+ years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, product strategy, corporate development, sales, or ecosystem development in the technology industry.
• Experience working with AI model providers, cloud platforms, mobile OEMs, operating system providers, or developer ecosystem partners.
• Familiarity with Snapdragon platforms, mobile SoCs, NPUs, AI software stacks, and model optimization techniques.
• Experience structuring partnerships involving joint technology development, co-marketing, platform enablement, or customer co-selling.
• Strong network across AI, mobile, cloud, or consumer-device ecosystems.

Responsibilities

• Help develop and execute multi-year engagement strategies for priority frontier AI companies, including account priorities, executive engagement, opportunity pipelines, technical collaboration areas, and commercial objectives.
• Identify and advance opportunities to bring frontier AI models and experiences to Snapdragon-based smartphones, PCs, XR devices, and other mobile form factors, emphasizing on-device and hybrid AI, privacy-preserving inference, and differentiated user experiences.
• Coordinate engagement across Qualcomm business units, including Mobile, Compute, IoT, Automotive, Cloud/Data Center, and Software, to prioritize, staff, and execute partnership opportunities with clear ownership.
• Work with product management, engineering, AI research, software, and developer ecosystem teams to translate partners’ model requirements and product direction into platform requirements, optimization opportunities, and proof-of-concept plans.
• Establish and maintain senior-level relationships with frontier AI company leaders across product, partnerships, engineering, enterprise, and go-to-market teams; coordinate Qualcomm executive sponsorship and engagement cadence.
• Support business case development, deal structuring, negotiation preparation, and internal approvals for technical collaboration, platform optimization, customer co-selling, developer enablement, ecosystem programs, and joint market development.
• Identify opportunities to align frontier AI companies’ enterprise momentum, model adoption, and partner ecosystems with Qualcomm’s OEM, operator, enterprise, cloud, and developer relationships.
• Track frontier models, enterprise AI adoption, AI agents, mobile AI assistants, cloud-to-edge inference, and competitor partnerships to inform Qualcomm’s strategic positioning.
• Maintain an account operating rhythm, including opportunity reviews, stakeholder updates, executive briefings, decision logs, action tracking, and progress against quarterly and annual objectives.
• Develop and execute frontier AI account and partnership strategies with measurable milestones.
• Advance qualified cross-business-unit partnership opportunities, especially in mobile devices and on-device AI.
• Establish executive- and working-level engagement across priority frontier AI companies’ product, engineering, and business teams.
• Deliver technical proof points, pilots, or joint initiatives demonstrating Qualcomm platform differentiation for frontier AI-enabled experiences.
• Improve internal alignment across Qualcomm business units on partnership priorities, ownership, and investment decisions.
• Develop commercial pathways that create strategic value for Qualcomm, frontier AI partners, OEMs, developers, and end users.

Benefits

• Competitive annual discretionary bonus program; employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for the annual bonus.
• Opportunity for annual RSU grants.
• Competitive benefits package designed to support employees at work, at home, and at play.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director