Senior Partnerships Manager

Black Forest Labs

$175K — $240K *
Enterprise Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Technical background in image/video generation or solutions architecture, engineering, or technical product roles
  • Proven business development experience in AI, cloud, or technical infrastructure
  • Deep understanding of SaaS business models and API pricing
  • Ability to bridge technical discussions with commercial strategies
  • Strong skills in relationship-building with a record of maintaining partnerships
  • Analytical capabilities with a focus on market research

Responsibilities

  • Drive business growth through strategic partnerships and deal development
  • Develop innovative pricing strategies for emerging capabilities
  • Collaborate with multifaceted teams to lead complex deals
  • Identify and establish new distribution and monetization opportunities
  • Translate technical capabilities into commercial advantages
  • Structure partnership models for diverse client needs

Benefits

  • Monthly in-person week to enhance team connection
  • Coverage of reasonable travel costs for office attendance
  • Flexible work locations, with either office-based or remote options
  • Collaborative work environment that values in-person teamwork
  • Structured support for managing in-office commitments
Full Job Description
This role can be office-based in San Francisco, USA or remote-first, with a requirement to be in the office one full week per month.
What You'll Work On
  • Drive business growth through strategic partnerships and custom deal development, from initial outreach through close
  • Develop pricing strategies for capabilities that may not have existed six months ago
  • Collaborate with Research, Engineering, Finance, and Legal to lead complex product, data, and distribution deals
  • Identify and forge new distribution and monetization channels the market hasn't imagined yet
  • Translate technical capabilities into commercial opportunities, working directly with engineers to understand product requirements and limitations
  • Structure partnership models that serve both API users and enterprises running models on-premise
What We're Looking For

You have deep technical fluency. Either you've worked in image/video generation (at companies building diffusion models, creative tools, or visual AI products) or you come from a technical background-solutions architect, engineer, technical product manager. You can discuss model architectures, inference optimization, and training pipelines with our research team, then translate those capabilities into commercial value propositions.

You've done serious business development in technical domains where you had to learn fast and think structurally. You understand SaaS business models, API pricing, and enterprise licensing. You're comfortable with ambiguity-when a partner asks "Can your model do X?" and X is something we could build but haven't yet, you know how to navigate that conversation honestly.

You care about craft. You want to work with a small, technically exceptional team that's building in public and pushing boundaries. You have strong opinions about how this market should evolve, and you're ready to shape it.

Required:
  • Technical foundation: Either prior experience in image/video generation companies OR a technical background (engineering, solutions architecture, technical product roles)
  • Proven track record in BD/partnerships in AI, cloud, or technical infrastructure
  • Deep understanding of SaaS business models, API pricing, cloud consulting, and enterprise licensing
  • Ability to hold technical conversations with engineers and translate them into commercial strategy
  • Strong relationship-building with track record of maintaining long-term partnerships
  • Analytical rigor and market research capabilities

Nice to have:
  • Experience with diffusion models for image/video generation
  • Early-stage, high-growth startup experience
  • B2B API and model weight licensing sales models
  • Open-source business model experience
How We Work Together

We're a distributed team with real offices that people actually use. Depending on your role, you'll either join us in Freiburg or SF at least 2 days a week (or one full week every other week), or work remotely with a monthly in-person week to stay connected. We'll cover reasonable travel costs to make this possible. We think in-person time matters, and we've structured things to make it accessible to all. We'll discuss what this will look like for the role during our interview process.

Everything we do is grounded in four values:
  • Obsessed. We are a frontier research lab. The science has to be right, the understanding deep, the product beautiful.
  • Low Ego. The work speaks. The best idea wins, no matter who said it. Credit is shared. Nobody is above any task.
  • Bold. We take the ambitious bet. We ship, we do not wait for conditions to be perfect.
  • Kind. People over politics. We treat each other with genuine warmth. Agency without empathy creates chaos.

If this sounds like work you'd enjoy, we'd love to hear from you.

Base Annual Salary:

EU €135,000 - €190,000 + variable + equity

US $175,000 - $240,000 + variable + equity

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