Director of Business Development

Director of Business Development

San Francisco, California, United States

About Nothing

Nothing exists to make tech feel exciting again. Nothing is building a different kind of technology company, one that puts design, emotion, and human creativity at the heart of everything we do. From the way our products look and feel to how we communicate and show up in culture, we believe technology should make you feel something. Founded in London in 2020, we've grown from idea to global challenger in just a few years. Backed by GV (Google Ventures), EQT Ventures, and C Ventures, and investors like Tony Fadell (iPod), Casey Neistat, and Kevin Lin (Twitch), we're now sold in 40+ markets with millions of users worldwide.

About the Role

Nothing is building the next generation of consumer technology — AI-native devices with a design-led, challenger brand. The software experiences we're building run on inputs that come from other companies: the models, the compute, the data, and the platform rights underneath every AI feature we ship. Just as our hardware has a supply chain, so does our software — and the deals that secure it shape our product, our economics, and our position in the AI-device ecosystem. You will own and originate Nothing's software supply chain partnerships, across four fronts:

• AI labs / model access — licensing frontier and challenger models, inference pricing, on-device model rights, first-of-kind integration agreements
• OS & services (Google / Android ecosystem) — platform-level relationships, OS and services agreements, integration and placement terms
• Cloud infrastructure — the multi-year agreements underneath our services: committed-spend structures, credits, and strategic terms that change the margin on every AI interaction
• Data partnerships — the supply, labeling, and licensing agreements that feed Nothing's AI capabilities, including newer and more sensitive data domains as our product roadmap grows

A smaller set of US hardware partnerships also sits with this role, but software is the mandate. These are few-in-number, high-stakes deals with some of the largest technology companies in the world, negotiated from the position of a challenger without incumbent leverage. This is a doing role, not a delegating role: you'll be the architect, the closer, and the person who makes their own materials.

What You'll Do

• Define Nothing's software supply chain strategy with the executive team; identify where partnerships beat build-or-buy
• Originate relationships outbound with AI labs, Google/Android, cloud providers, and data partners
• Structure multi-year, platform-level agreements: model access and inference pricing, OS/services terms, cloud commitments, data supply and licensing
• Negotiate and close with senior counterparts, personally owning commercial terms end-to-end
• Land deals that change product economics — inference costs, cloud margins, services revenue per device
• Work as a player-coach across product, engineering, marketing, and finance so partnerships are built into roadmaps, not bolted on
• Operate hands-on with no playbook, no template library, and no big-company legal machine behind you

What We're Looking For

Must Have

• 8+ years of enterprise / platform business development with named, multi-year strategic deals
• Direct experience negotiating with at least one of: frontier/major AI labs, Google/Android platform teams, or major silicon vendors (Qualcomm, MediaTek, or similar)
• Proven outbound origination: you've created partnerships from cold, ideally from a challenger or lesser-known company where the brand didn't open the door for you
• C-suite deal-making at scale: demonstrated large-deal history, with ownership of commercial and legal terms
• Current, active focus on the North American market
• Deep fluency in the consumer-electronics / device landscape: silicon, OS, AI stack, and how they connect to device economics

Strong Plus

• Deals with warrant/equity or non-standard commercial structures
• On-device AI or model-integration deal experience
• 0-to-1 builder: founder, early-team, or built a BD function from scratch
• Genuine affinity for Nothing's brand and design-led, culture-forward mission

Salary Range: $220-300K