Director of Partnerships

Stealth Startup • Redwood City, CA

3d

About The Position

We're building the intelligence layer for the home: ambient, proactive, and built into a family of devices, a central hub, accessories, and the software that ties them together. We’re a Series A startup backed by a tier-1 VC & technology partners, with an ex-unicorn founder. Early team, moving fast.

The Role
We're looking for a deal-maker who can build the partnerships and supply relationships that turn great hardware into a real business. This is a rare seat: you'll own both sides of our external commercial relationships, the brands and platforms we integrate and go to market with, and the manufacturing and component partners who build us, and you'll work directly with the CEO to structure and close the deals that matter. You are the person who makes deals happen. On one side, you'll build the ecosystem and commercial partnerships that put our product in front of consumers and make it work seamlessly in their homes. On the other, you'll partner with the CEO on the supply and manufacturing relationships that bring the hardware to life. Your common thread across both is the ability to find, structure, negotiate, and paper a deal, and to do it with the speed and judgment an early-stage company lives or dies on.

Requirements

• Consumer hardware native. You've done partnerships or business development inside consumer electronics, you understand the ecosystem, the players, the integration and distribution dynamics, and the realities of building physical product through partners.
• A closer, not just a connector. You're measured by signed deals, not meetings. You know how to move a relationship from interest to contract, and you've structured agreements that held up.
• Comfortable on both sides of the table. You can run a co-marketing or platform-integration conversation in the morning and a component or ODM negotiation in the afternoon, and you're credible in both rooms.
• Contract-fluent. You can read, redline, and draft commercial agreements yourself. You don't need a lawyer to start the document, you bring counsel in to finish it.
• Low ego, high ownership. No deal is too small and no follow-up beneath you. You operate with total discretion around sensitive commercial, financial, and partner information.
• Fast and founder-paced. You thrive working shoulder-to-shoulder with a CEO, you make calls with incomplete information, and you don't need a large org around you to be effective.
• 6+ years in business development, partnerships, or commercial roles, with meaningful time inside consumer hardware / consumer electronics.
• A demonstrable track record of sourcing, structuring, and closing partnership and/or supply agreements.
• Hands-on experience drafting and negotiating commercial contracts.
• Strong working knowledge of the consumer hardware landscape, brands, platforms, ecosystems, and the manufacturing/supply chain that supports them.

Responsibilities

• Own the partnership pipeline end to end. Identify, prioritize, and land partnerships across consumer brands, smart-home and audio ecosystems, and software platforms, from first conversation to signed agreement.
• Run the supply and manufacturing relationships. Work alongside the CEO and engineering on ODM, component, and supplier deals, negotiating terms, managing the relationships, and keeping us moving toward testable product fast.
• Write and own the contracts. Draft, structure, and negotiate term sheets, partnership agreements, supply agreements, and NDAs. Partner with the CEO and counsel to get them closed cleanly.
• Be the connective tissue. Translate between commercial partners, suppliers, engineering, and leadership so deals reflect what the product actually needs and what the business can commit to.
• Build the function. You'll start as an individual deal-maker and define how partnerships and BD scale as we grow.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed