RoleAs Manager/Sr. Manager, Business Development, you'll build and scale the commercial partnerships that help Whatnot grow faster, operate better, and create more value for our buyers and sellers. Reporting to the Head of Business Development, you'll own strategic partner relationships across areas like shipping and logistics, payments, technology platforms, and other high-impact opportunities. This is a role for someone who can move from strategy to execution quickly. You'll identify the right opportunities, structure deals, work through tradeoffs with cross-functional teams, and stay close enough to the details to make partnerships actually work after they're signed.
In this role, you will:
- Build and manage Whatnot's most important commercial partnerships, measured by partner-driven business impact, execution against joint roadmaps, and the strength of long-term partner relationships.
- Improve Whatnot's commercial advantage by identifying, structuring, negotiating, and launching partnerships across logistics, payments, platforms, and other strategic areas.
- Turn ambiguous partnership opportunities into clear operating plans by defining success metrics, aligning internal owners, and driving execution across Product, Engineering, Operations, Legal, Finance, Marketing, and Customer Experience.
- Advise internal teams on deal structure, partner strategy, and market dynamics as Whatnot scales new categories, expands offerings, and builds deeper infrastructure for live commerce.
- Stay close to the product, our sellers, and our buyers so partnership decisions are grounded in real user needs, not abstract market trends.
We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles hub.
YouPeople who do well at Whatnot tend to be comfortable figuring things out as they go, biased toward action, and genuinely curious about what they're building. They care more about outcomes than credit and stay close to the product and the people using it.
- 8+ years of experience in business development, partnerships, strategic procurement or a related commercial role at a high-growth marketplace, ecommerce, consumer technology, logistics, payments, or platform business,
- A track record of owning complex commercial partnerships end-to-end, from opportunity sizing and negotiation through launch, operating cadence, and measurable business impact.
- Strong commercial judgment. You can separate interesting opportunities from high-impact ones, structure clear tradeoffs, and explain why a deal matters to the business.
- Experience working with senior external partners and internal executives, with the ability to build trust, push for better terms, and keep momentum without creating unnecessary process.
- Strong cross-functional execution. You know how to bring Product, Engineering, Operations, Legal, Finance, and Marketing together around a plan and keep it moving.
- Experience owning partnerships in any of the following areas: payments, shipping, logistics, product/platform, or marketplace infrastructure.
- Comfort with ambiguity and fast iteration. You don't need a perfect playbook to start, and you can adjust quickly when priorities or facts change.
- High ownership and attention to detail. You don't disappear after a deal is signed. You make sure the partnership works in practice.
- Strong analytical skills and comfort using data to size opportunities, evaluate tradeoffs, and make recommendations.
- Genuine curiosity about Whatnot's product, categories, sellers, buyers, and the future of live commerce.
- Fluency in using AI tools to enhance problem-solving, analysis, and execution across a wide range of business challenges
- Operate independently
- Able to move remarkably fast with little structure, guidance
- Passion for Whatnot's existing categories, seller communities, or live commerce.
Benefits- Generous Holiday and Time off Policy
- Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
- Work From Home Support
- Home office setup allowance
- Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
- Care benefits
- Monthly allowance for wellness
- Annual allowance towards Childcare
- Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
- Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
- Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
- All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).
- Parental Leave
- 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.
Please note: Whatnot will only contact you through official [redacted].com email addresses. If you see an email impersonating a Whatnot recruiter, please disregard and report it as spam. 
