Head of Startups and Venture Capital, Sales
About The Position
Fireworks is hiring a Head of Startups & Venture Capital to build and lead its startup ecosystem, including programs, partnerships, and relationships that position Fireworks as the AI platform of choice for emerging AI Native companies. The role owns relationships with venture firms and accelerators, designs the startup program, and helps early-stage builders become production-scale customers. It turns ecosystem access into measurable pipeline, product adoption, and revenue while bringing founder and investor insights back to product and leadership. The position is based in San Mateo, CA or San Francisco, CA. The successful candidate will define the startup and venture strategy; scale technical programming and go-to-market benefits; manage portfolio-wide partnerships and ecosystem events; and measure program economics and impact. They will collaborate across Sales, Marketing, Product, Developer Relations, and Finance, and build a startup and VC team as the business scales.
Requirements
- At least 5 years of experience in startup partnerships, venture capital, business development, or go-to-market roles at a cloud, developer, or AI infrastructure company.
- An established network across top-tier venture firms, accelerators, and founders.
- A proven track record of turning ecosystem relationships into measurable pipeline, product adoption, and revenue.
- Experience designing and running startup programs, including credits, perks, and technical enablement, with clear economics and accountability.
- Technical fluency sufficient to discuss open-source models, inference performance, fine-tuning, and cost trade-offs credibly with founders and CTOs.
- Comfort operating in a high-growth environment where the playbook is still being written, and ability to create and execute a plan.
- Strong cross-functional partnership skills across Sales, Marketing, Product, Developer Relations, and Finance.
- Genuine enthusiasm for founders and early-stage builders.
Nice To Haves
- Experience running a startup or VC program at a hyperscaler, AI lab, or developer platform.
- Prior experience as a VC investor, platform lead at a venture firm, or founder or early employee at a venture-backed startup.
- Existing relationships with AI-focused funds, accelerators, and founder communities.
- Background in a technical, product, or developer relations role.
Responsibilities
- Define and own Fireworks' startup and venture strategy, including target segments, programs, partner tiers, and pipeline, activation, and revenue goals.
- Build and scale the Fireworks Startup Program, including technical programming, go-to-market benefits, and graduation paths from self-serve to committed contracts.
- Develop relationships with partners and platform teams at venture firms, accelerators, and incubators, positioning Fireworks as their recommended platform for AI-building portfolio companies.
- Run portfolio-wide partnerships, including perks and credits agreements, office hours, technical workshops, founder dinners, and AI infrastructure briefings.
- Represent Fireworks at demo days, accelerator cohorts, hackathons, panels, and founder communities.
- Track and report program economics and impact, including credit spend, activation, conversion to paid usage, and influenced revenue.
- Bring founder and investor insights to product and leadership, including feedback on models, workloads, and features needed by emerging companies.
- Build and scale a high-performing startup and VC team.
Benefits
- Work on challenging AI infrastructure problems, including low-latency inference and scalable model serving.
- Work with advanced technology that affects how businesses and developers use AI globally.
- Ownership and direct impact in a fast-growing team.
- Collaborate with engineers and AI researchers.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
No Education Listed
