Founding Technical Partnerships Lead

About the Role

This is a founding role at an early-stage AI data and evaluation infrastructure company, sitting at the intersection of technical research and commercial strategy. You will be the primary bridge between the company and the teams training the world's most advanced AI models, working directly with researchers and technical leaders to shape datasets, evaluations, and long-term partnerships. The role carries significant individual ownership and the opportunity to build and lead a partnerships function from the ground up.

What You'll Do

• Build and manage relationships with researchers and technical leaders at frontier AI labs to understand their priorities and constraints.
• Identify technical needs across post-training, evaluations, agents, and scientific data.
• Translate technical requirements from ML researchers into concrete dataset designs, experimental specifications, and evaluation frameworks.
• Feed customer insights and feedback directly into the ML and product roadmap.
• Define and execute go-to-market strategy and positioning for partnerships with advanced AI teams.
• Help establish how the company engages with and scales its relationships across frontier research organizations.

What We're Looking For

• 3 or more years in AI partnerships, business development, or research-facing roles at AI labs, technical AI startups, or frontier research organizations.
• Hands-on experience with AI data, evaluations, and post-training workflows.
• Demonstrated ability to translate technical ML researcher requirements into concrete dataset specifications, experimental designs, and evaluation protocols.
• Experience building and managing partnerships with technical teams at research institutions or AI organizations.
• Track record of identifying customer needs through technical discovery and converting them into commercial opportunities, including enterprise deals.
• Experience defining go-to-market strategies and commercial models for technical products or services.
• Background at an AI data company or similar technical data infrastructure business is a strong plus.
• Strong grasp of foundation models, agents, and evaluation methodologies.
• Comfortable operating in early-stage, ambiguous environments with minimal process or structure.
• Background in ML research, ML engineering, or scientific data generation is a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $100,000 to $200,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site. Primary location is Munich, Bavaria, Germany, with additional options in Zurich and San Francisco. Work arrangement is flexible and to be discussed.