Director of AI Ecosystem & Partnerships

Justworks•New York, NY

3h•$147,000 - $190,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Justworks is building for the future of work, and increasingly, that work is happening inside AI platforms, agentic workflows, and new software ecosystems. We’re looking for a Director, AI Ecosystem & Partnerships to define and lead how Justworks shows up across the rapidly evolving AI landscape. This role will bring together fragmented efforts across AI integrations, API expansion, emerging platform relationships, and AI-driven discovery into a cohesive commercial strategy that drives visibility, preference, and adoption for Justworks within AI platforms and among the companies building on them. This is a high-visibility, high-judgment role for someone who can operate across strategy and execution. You will work closely with Product, Partnerships, Marketing, Sales, and senior leadership to translate a fast-moving AI ecosystem into clear choices, prioritized investments, and measurable business outcomes. The mandate is simple: help ensure Justworks is not only integrated into the next generation of workflows, but discovered, recommended, trusted, and adopted by the businesses using them.

Requirements

8–12+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, platform ecosystems, corporate strategy, product strategy, GTM strategy, or a related role.
Experience working with or within platform ecosystems, such as SaaS platforms, marketplaces, API ecosystems, developer platforms, or emerging AI platforms.
Understanding of the AI landscape to separate durable strategic shifts from hype, including LLMs, AI agents, copilots, AI search, and emerging enterprise workflows.
Structured thinker who can take an ambiguous opportunity and turn it into a clear strategy, roadmap, business case, or executive narrative.
Commercially oriented and can connect ecosystem activity to pipeline, revenue, adoption, retention, or strategic positioning.
Ability to operate cross-functionally across Product, Marketing, Sales, Partnerships, and senior leadership without needing perfect ownership lines.
Comfortable working directly with data, market signals, partner inputs, and customer insights to make practical recommendations.
Strong communicator who can present with clarity and conviction to executives, partners, and internal teams.
Builder mindset: energized by creating structure where none exists and turning early signals into scalable operating models.
Genuinely curious about how AI will change software discovery, business workflows, and the way companies choose and adopt tools.

Responsibilities

Define and lead Justworks’ commercial AI ecosystem strategy
Develop a unified strategy for how Justworks wins within AI platforms, agentic workflows, and emerging software ecosystems.
Translate fragmented efforts across integrations, APIs, partnerships, AI discovery, and go-to-market into a clear roadmap with measurable outcomes.
Identify where Justworks should invest, partner, build, or experiment to increase visibility and adoption in AI-driven customer journeys.
Build executive-ready recommendations that connect AI ecosystem opportunities to commercial impact, customer value, and long-term strategic positioning.
Build and scale strategic AI partnerships
Own and develop relationships with frontier AI labs, AI platforms, developer ecosystems, and other strategic partners.
Identify opportunities for commercial partnerships, co-marketing, marketplace placement, featured integrations, and ecosystem distribution.
Ensure Justworks is not only technically integrated, but visible, trusted, and prioritized within relevant partner ecosystems.
Represent Justworks externally with the credibility and judgment required to engage senior partner stakeholders.
Drive AI-native go-to-market and discovery
Partner with Marketing to evolve traditional search and content strategies into AI discovery and Answer Engine Optimization approaches.
Help define how Justworks should appear in AI-generated experiences, recommendations, and customer research workflows.
Develop messaging, campaigns, and channel strategies tailored to AI-first startups, technology companies, and businesses adopting AI-native workflows.
Turn AI platform visibility, customer behavior, and ecosystem data into practical recommendations for Sales, Marketing, and Product.
Partner closely with Product and Engineering
Collaborate with Product and Engineering on integrations, API capabilities, and platform requirements that support AI ecosystem adoption.
Translate partner needs, customer workflows, and market signals into clear product insights and prioritization inputs.
Help evaluate which technical investments are most likely to create commercial leverage.
Bridge business strategy and technical execution without needing to be the technical owner.
Create commercial impact and operating leverage
Define success metrics across platform visibility, partner-sourced pipeline, AI-driven acquisition, ecosystem placement, and revenue contribution.
Build business cases that help leadership evaluate trade-offs, resource needs, and investment priorities.
Turn early experiments into repeatable growth motions.
Develop reusable frameworks, narratives, and operating models that help internal teams understand and act on AI ecosystem opportunities.