Partnerships

Applied Compute•San Francisco, CA

1d•$125,000 - $260,000•Onsite

About The Position

The role involves building and managing relationships with key companies in the open model ecosystem, including hyperscalers, chip makers, and open weight model release labs. The goal is to ensure open models become production-ready and well-supported across hardware and infrastructure. This is one of the first dedicated partnerships hires, responsible for establishing and nurturing these crucial industry connections.

Requirements

A record of building relationships with senior people at other organizations and turning them into concrete outcomes.
Real curiosity about model development and the drive to become fluent in it quickly.
Ability to follow model releases, read technical papers, and discuss model support requirements with researchers.
Excellent judgment about people and opportunities.
Strong operator who keeps commitments, dates, and details organized.
Full-time position based in San Francisco, working from the office in the Mission.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with a chip maker, hyperscaler, or AI lab on the partner side.
Experience building a partnerships function early at a scaling company.
Relationships in the open source and open model community.
Experience running launches or programs with an external partner.

Responsibilities

Own relationships with chip makers, hardware vendors, and infrastructure companies, fostering executive sponsorship.
Translate relationships into tangible benefits like early access to hardware/software, joint launches, co-marketing, and technical collaboration.
Represent the company in partner ecosystem initiatives, such as open model coalitions and startup programs, ensuring commitments are met.
Build relationships with labs releasing open weight models to ensure early awareness and rapid platform support.
Collaborate with the research team to plan day-zero support for new models and coordinate joint announcements.
Maintain a clear understanding of customer model needs, current support, and identify gaps to inform founders and the product team.
Identify new partnership opportunities, build internal cases, and structure agreements.
Manage the operational aspects of partnerships, including credits, program benefits, reporting, and internal updates.
Collaborate with marketing on partner launches, events, and content.
Work with sales to leverage partner relationships in customer deals.