Strategic Partnerships

About Exa

Exa is building a search engine for the AI era. Our Search API currently powers Agents, Fortune 500s and AI labs as we transform an industry that hasn't been disrupted since the 90s. We're a largely SF-based team of ~100 from Harvard, MIT, Meta, Google Research, ex-founders & dropouts alike.

We recently raised an $85M Series B from Benchmark, and we are rapidly building the most intelligent search engine in history. We're high agency, low-ego, and united by the feeling that this is one of the last problems worth getting right.

The role

Strategic Partnerships at Exa is focused on extracting maximum reach and distribution from the highest-leverage channels in the AI ecosystem: hyperscaler clouds, frontier model labs, AI-native consultancies and system integrators, the startup ecosystem, and venture investors. The team's edge is co-marketing: turning partner relationships into joint launches, shared audiences, field presence, and marketplace distribution that compounds Exa's GTM.

We're hiring a Strategic Partnerships Manager for North America who sits at the intersection of partner development and go-to-market. You'll own a portfolio of named partners across cloud infra, frontier models, consultancies/SIs, startups, and VCs, activating each one as a distribution channel and co-marketing surface, working closely with marketing, engineering, and sales to take each partnership from first conversation to a live, audience-generating, revenue-contributing relationship. Expect to operate with founder-level autonomy on the partnerships you own.

What you'll do

- Own the outcomes for your portfolio: activated partnerships, sourced and co-sold pipeline, and revenue contribution against ambitious quarterly targets.

- Own a portfolio spanning Cloud Infra (AWS/GCP/Azure-class), frontier model labs, AI-native consultancies/SIs, Startups, and a venture portfolio motion.

- Run the cloud hyperscaler motion: partner relationship management with PDMs, regular partner syncs and follow-through, partner conferences and kickoffs, joint outbound with their AEs, field presentations on Exa, and marketplace listings/specials.

- Run the frontier model motion: joint solutioning with applied / forward-deployed teams on shared customer deployments, integration QA and eval support, tool catalog / marketplace listings (GPTs, Claude tools, Gemini extensions, etc.), and joint launches.

- Vet, sign, and activate AI-native consultancies and system integrators: field enablement so their consultants can position Exa in client work, joint pursuit support on live deals, and presence at their kickoffs/conferences.

- Vet and activate startup partners: technical enablement and integration support, periodic QBRs and tracking on active partnerships, and co-marketing across Exa's surfaces and theirs.

- Run a light-touch VC motion: plug Exa into VC startup programs to reach their portfolios at scale, issue and track promo codes, and keep firm-level relationships warm with minimal overhead.

- Drive co-marketing across the portfolio: joint launches, blog posts, demos, and conference moments, in lockstep with partner marketing teams.

- Bring the voice of the partner back into product: what their field is seeing, what their customers are building, what's about to change in their stack before we feel it ourselves.

Who You Are

- You've owned strategic partnerships end-to-end at a high-velocity company (cloud, infra, dev tools, AI/ML, data) and can point to specific partnerships you signed and activated to revenue, not just sourced.

- You've worked across at least two of: hyperscaler clouds, frontier model labs, consultancies/SIs, the startup ecosystem, or VCs, and can speak credibly to how each one buys, sells, and prioritizes.

- You can pick up technical concepts fast (APIs, agent stacks, retrieval, eval workflows) and represent them confidently to partner field engineers, FDEs, and AEs.

- You're comfortable in a high-velocity startup where the portfolio shifts regularly and where prioritization decisions sit with you.

Bonus

- You've run partner motions inside or with AWS, GCP, Azure, OpenAI, and Anthropic and know how their partner organizations actually operate (marketplace ops, FDEs, partner AEs, co-sell motions).

- You've built field enablement programs for system integrators or consultancies and have a point of view on what makes consultants actually pull a product into a client engagement.

- You have an existing network in the AI-native boutique consultancy space: relationships, not just LinkedIn connections.

This is an in-person opportunity in San Francisco. We're happy to sponsor international candidates (e.g., STEM OPT, OPT, H1B, O1, E3). In addition to premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), we also offer fertility benefits and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.