Strategic Partnerships Lead – AI Labs & Cloud Providers

Lavendo•San Francisco, CA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

This is a high-leverage, 0-to-1 role at one of the fastest-scaling AI companies in the world. You'll architect and own the entire strategic partnerships function — spanning AI labs, cloud hyperscalers, and SDLC platform partners — at a pivotal inflection point. You'll report directly to a senior company leader, have a clear line to the founders, and define what world-class strategic partnerships look like in the autonomous AI era. There is no playbook. You'll write it.

Requirements

6–12 years of B2B enterprise SaaS strategic partnerships experience
Proven ability to build partnerships from scratch at a high-growth startup or top-tier tech company (not just maintain or inherit them)
Named, verifiable partnerships you personally drove — with measurable revenue, product, or market impact
Fluency across the full range of partnership types: AI lab relationships, cloud co-sell motions, and product/SDLC integrations
Strong cross-functional operating skills — you can align product, engineering, and GTM around a shared partner vision
Ability and willingness to work in-office 5 days/week in San Francisco (SoMa) and travel frequently for partner meetings and events

Nice To Haves

0-to-1 instinct — you're energized by ambiguity and building where nothing existed before
Executive presence — you operate credibly at the C-suite level with AI labs, cloud providers, and Fortune 500 partners
Frontier curiosity — you track the AI model landscape closely and see partnership opportunities before they're obvious
Extreme ownership — you define the roadmap, you drive it, you own the outcomes
Speed without sacrificing depth — you make fast, high-quality decisions and build durable relationships simultaneously
Startup metabolism — you thrive in fast-moving environments and don't need a large team or established playbook to produce results

Responsibilities

Own and architect the 90-day and 6-month partnership roadmaps across all current strategic partners
Identify and prioritize the next wave of partners the company should be working with
Build partnerships with AI model labs — including for post-training, data evaluations, and collaborative research
Extend the product through strategic integrations across the full software development lifecycle, embodying a modular, composable product philosophy
Drive deep co-sell and co-build motions with cloud hyperscalers tied to enterprise modernization and migration workloads
Operate cross-functionally alongside product, engineering, GTM, legal, and finance to bring partner motions to life
Build and eventually scale a team to execute on the partnership strategy you define