Partner Development Manager, AI Ecosystem

About OpenRouter

OpenRouter is the unified interface for LLMs. We route billions of tokens every month, helping developers and enterprises access, manage, and optimize their AI use across 200+ models and providers — without worrying about lock-in, capacity constraints, downtime, or complex integrations.

Our provider ecosystem — the model labs, inference services, and hardware platforms behind the marketplace — is what makes that possible. New providers reach out constantly, and every conversation is a chance to add supply, diversity, and reliability to the platform.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Partner Development Manager to own the long tail of new and inbound provider conversations and turn them into live integrations. Right now, inbound interest (Twitter/LinkedIn pings, “what’s interesting, what are you providing?” intros) outpaces our capacity to action it. Your job is to be the person who “just goes and does things” — qualifying, scoping, and driving hands-on onboarding so no promising provider slips through the cracks.

This is a tactical, high-velocity, low-ego execution role and the fastest way to learn partnerships from the inside. You’ll talk to providers all day, get technical enough to unblock their integrations, and work across Product, Engineering, and Support to get them shipped.

What You’ll Do

• Field and qualify inbound. Own the front door for new provider interest — respond to inbound across channels, run first conversations (“what are you providing, what’s interesting about it?”), and quickly separate high-signal opportunities from noise.

• Source the long tail. Proactively find and reach out to emerging model developers, inference platforms, and GPU/accelerator providers to expand OpenRouter’s supply diversity.

• Drive hands-on onboarding. Take qualified providers from first call to live integration — scoping, coordinating technical setup, checking metadata and pricing accuracy, and unblocking issues as they come up.

• Be technical enough to move fast. Read API docs, troubleshoot integrations, and translate provider needs to our Engineering and Product teams without waiting on someone else.

• Keep the pipeline moving. Track conversations, follow up relentlessly, and keep providers progressing so nothing stalls.

• Partner cross-functionally. Work with Product, Engineering, and Support to launch providers, communicate changes, and improve the onboarding process as you learn what breaks.

About You

• Plugged into the model ecosystem. You follow new models, labs, and inference providers closely and can hold a credible conversation with them from day one.

• Technical enough to be dangerous. Comfortable reading API docs, poking at endpoints, and troubleshooting basic integration issues; you don’t need an engineer for every question.

• Tactical and high-velocity. You default to action, move fast, follow up relentlessly, and take pride in shipping.

• Low ego, high ownership. No task is beneath you. You’ll do whatever it takes to get a provider live and make them successful.

• Early-career and eager to learn partnerships. You may not have years of formal partnerships experience — you want to build that muscle by doing.

• Clear communicator. You write and talk crisply with both external partners and internal teams.

What We Offer

• A front-row seat to the AI ecosystem and direct relationships with the model labs and providers shaping it.

• A fast on-ramp into partnerships, with room to grow into more strategic or senior provider roles as we scale.

• A collaborative, high-ownership environment where you own outcomes end to end.

• Remote-first (US), competitive salary and equity, fully covered health/dental/vision, unlimited PTO, a WFH budget, and quarterly offsites.

If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria above but are still interested in the role, please apply. Nobody checks every box, and we’re looking for someone excited to dive in and build with us.