Technical Vendor Lead

The Role

As our first Partnerships Vendor Lead at Nous Research, you’ll own the way external organizations and collaborators engage with the company. As a high-profile open-source AI project, Nous receives significant inbound interest from across the technology ecosystem. You’ll help turn that interest into durable, high-value relationships while ensuring every interaction with Nous is thoughtful, responsive, and well coordinated.

You’ll manage existing relationships, evaluate new opportunities, and connect the right external partners with the right people internally. This role is well suited to a personable, highly organized operator with strong judgment, a practical understanding of the AI landscape, and the willingness to roll up their sleeves in a fast-moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a primary point of contact for existing partners and help coordinate communication between external parties and internal stakeholders.

• Own the intake and triage of new partnership opportunities, quickly distinguishing high-value relationships from low-priority inbound.

• Route relevant introductions and opportunities to the appropriate teams across Nous, providing clear context and ensuring smooth handoffs.

• Build trusted relationships with leading teams across AI, technology, and the broader developer ecosystem.

• Create lightweight systems for tracking conversations, decisions, follow-ups, and next steps across a growing network of external relationships.

• Prepare concise briefs and recommendations that help internal stakeholders evaluate partnership opportunities efficiently.

• Ensure that partners and prospective collaborators receive a consistent, high-quality experience when engaging with Nous.

• Identify patterns across inbound interest and surface strategic opportunities for the company.

• Collaborate across time zones, including maintaining regular working-hour overlap with partners and colleagues in China.
  

Qualifications

• Experience in partnerships, strategy and operations, business development, developer relations, or a similarly cross-functional role.

• Strong interpersonal and written communication skills, with the ability to represent Nous thoughtfully to a wide range of external stakeholders.

• Excellent organization and follow-through across multiple relationships, conversations, and priorities.

• Sound judgment and the ability to evaluate opportunities, set priorities, and protect the team’s time.

• Familiarity with the AI and technology landscape and an understanding of how different parts of the ecosystem fit together.

• A high-agency, hands-on approach and comfort operating with ambiguity in a fast-moving organization.

• Ability to work effectively across technical and non-technical teams.

• Availability to work primarily within US time zones while maintaining meaningful overlap with China.
  

Nice-to-Have

• Experience at an early-stage or high-growth AI or technology company.

• Experience working with open-source projects, developer communities, or technical ecosystems.

• An existing network across AI research, infrastructure, applications, or adjacent technology markets.

• Experience managing partnerships or strategic relationships across multiple regions and time zones.