Strategic Product Partnerships Lead
At a glance
Senior Channel & Partnerships role at Vercel. San Francisco · $194,000–$237,000 base.
growthroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Manage a defined group of strategic partners from initial talks through contracts, launch and ongoing growth
- Find partnership opportunities across AI, cloud, commerce and enterprise software, then assess their commercial and product potential
- Build investment cases that weigh opportunity size against product and engineering work, and recommend whether to proceed
- Negotiate novel commercial terms, including revenue sharing, embedded pricing, joint sales commitments and marketplace arrangements
- Coordinate product, engineering and business teams to launch signed deals, tracking progress and ending partnerships that stall
What you bring
- At least eight years negotiating and delivering complex commercial agreements, ideally in platform, cloud, infrastructure or developer tools
- You have initiated partnerships without a precedent, including with much larger companies, and can explain the terms you secured and conceded
- You have structured technically complex deals and can discuss agents, inference, model routing and cloud infrastructure credibly
- You have set strategy, secured organizational investment and led cross-functional teams without managing them
Who this fits
This senior role suits someone who can work across technical and commercial teams and lead partnerships from negotiation through launch. It is hybrid, with three office days each week in San Francisco, Austin or New York City. The San Francisco salary range is $194,000 to $237,000, with an annual target bonus.
From the employer
About Vercel:
Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company, freeing people and agents to ship what's next. For more than a decade we've helped builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience.
Now we're scaling our products for both agents and people to ship and run software, built in the open and trusted by OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide.
About the role
As a Strategic Product Partnerships Lead, you’ll develop first-of-a-kind partnerships that inflect Vercel’s growth: partnerships that open distribution for our products, create new pipeline for our field teams, and add new capabilities to our platform.
You’ll own a named set of partners spanning hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, silicon vendors, and commerce and enterprise software platforms. These partnerships live close to the product, whether that means embedding Vercel inside a partner’s platform, co-building new products, or taking a joint offering to enterprises neither company could sell alone. This is a technical, cross-functional role: you’ll spend as much time with product and engineering leaders as with commercial ones, inside Vercel and across the table.
This is a hybrid role with 3 in-office days per week in San Francisco, Austin, or New York City.
What you'll do
- Own a named set of strategic partners end to end, from first conversation through signed agreement to launch and growth
- Identify and develop new partnerships across AI, cloud, commerce, and enterprise software
- Build the business case: size the opportunity, scope the product and engineering investment, and give leadership a clear recommendation, including when the answer is to pass
- Lead negotiations end to end, structuring agreements that are new to Vercel and often to the partner: revenue share, embedded pricing, co-sell commitments, marketplace terms
- Lead cross-functional teams across Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Legal to take a signed agreement to launch, with clear milestones and the judgment to stop deals that are not working
What you need
- 8+ years developing, negotiating, and executing complex commercial agreements, ideally at a platform, infrastructure, cloud, or developer tools company
- Initiated partnerships with no precedent, with companies significantly larger than your own, and can walk through the terms you won and the ones you gave up
- Structured deals with significant technical surface area (platform integrations, embedded or whitelabeled product, licensing, compute commitments), and can hold a credible conversation about agents, inference, model routing, and cloud infrastructure
- Created and drove strategy, and got an organization to fund it
- Led cross-functional teams you don’t manage across Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, and Sales
Bonus if you
- Have done partnerships at or with a hyperscaler, a frontier AI lab, or a large commerce or enterprise software platform
- Structured technology licensing, OEM, or embedded distribution agreements
- Started in a technical role (engineering, solutions architecture, or technical product) before moving into commercial work
Compensation & Benefits:
- Competitive compensation package, including equity.
- Inclusive Healthcare Package.
- Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
- Flexible Time Off.
- We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.
The San Francisco, CA salary range for this role is $194,000 - $237,000, plus an annual company target bonus. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.
Disclosures:
- Privacy: Please review our Job Applicant Privacy Policy for more information on how we handle your data.
- Equal Opportunity: Vercel is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Vercel encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.