Senior Associate, Corporate Development

Sonar•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

As a Senior Associate, Corporate Development at Sonar, you will play a foundational role in shaping the company's growth strategy across M&A, strategic investments, and build/partner/buy decisions. Reporting to the VP, Corporate Development, you will be the primary engine for outbound sourcing, market mapping, and triage of M&A opportunities across the AI coding, developer tools, application security, and broader software development lifecycle (SDLC) ecosystem. You will own day-to-day pipeline management and serve as the connective tissue between Sonar's executive leadership, Product, Engineering, Finance, and Legal teams as we evaluate M&A opportunities. From first outreach through diligence and integration planning, you will help ensure Sonar evaluates the right opportunities, with the right rigor, at the right pace. This is a high-visibility role designed to give an early-career professional from venture capital, investment banking, or corporate development direct operating exposure at one of the most strategically positioned independent software companies in the AI era.

Requirements

2+ years of full-time experience in venture capital, growth equity, investment banking (TMT/software coverage or M&A), management consulting (with a tech focus), or in-house corporate development at a high-quality technology company.
Demonstrated exposure to the full deal lifecycle — sourcing, diligence, modeling, and ideally support on transaction execution and/or post-close integration.
Strong financial and analytical fundamentals: comfortable building three-statement and operating models, conducting valuation analyses, and rigorously interrogating SaaS/software business metrics (ARR, NRR/GRR, CAC payback, magic number, Rule of 40, gross margin, FCF).
Genuine interest in and curiosity about the developer tools, AI coding, code security, and broader software/DevOps ecosystem; ability to quickly come up to speed on new product categories and technical concepts.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with a track record of producing clear, concise, executive-ready memos and presentations.
Highly organized, self-directed, and proactive — comfortable owning a pipeline, managing parallel workstreams, and operating with minimal supervision in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment.
Strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence; able to build trust quickly with founders, executives, advisors, and internal stakeholders across functions and geographies.
Sound judgment, intellectual honesty, and a high degree of discretion when handling confidential information.
Bachelor's degree in finance, economics, business, computer science, engineering, or a related field; strong academic record.

Responsibilities

Conduct outbound sourcing and market mapping across AI coding, developer tools, application security, and adjacent SDLC categories — building and continuously refreshing landscapes of public and private companies relevant to Sonar's strategy.
Triage inbound and outbound opportunities, performing first-pass commercial, product, and technical screens to determine fit, priority, and recommended next steps.
Own and maintain Sonar's corporate development pipeline (CRM hygiene, target lists, status tracking, weekly reporting), ensuring leadership has a clear, real-time view of activity and progress.
Build and maintain relationships with founders, operators, bankers, venture investors, and other ecosystem participants to generate proprietary deal flow.
Engage with internal stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Go-to-Market, Finance, and Legal to gather strategic input, prioritize targets, and align on evaluation criteria.
Run structured diligence workstreams on prioritized targets, including analysis of key business metrics (ARR growth, net and gross retention, gross margin, profitability/burn, sales efficiency, customer concentration) and product/technical fit.
Build financial models, valuation analyses (comps, precedent transactions, DCF where appropriate), and synthesis materials to support investment decisions and executive review.
Prepare crisp, executive-ready memos, dashboards, and board-quality materials that translate complex diligence findings into clear recommendations.
Support deal execution by coordinating across internal teams, external advisors, and target-side counterparts on data room reviews, Q&A, and process management.
Partner with cross-functional leaders on integration planning and execution for closed transactions, helping translate deal theses into 30/60/90-day operating plans and tracking integration KPIs post-close.
Contribute to Sonar's broader corporate strategy work, including market sizing, competitive analyses, and "build vs. partner vs. buy" frameworks for new product and category bets.