Business Development Lead, AI & LLM Partnerships

Job description

Who is Sonar?

Sonar helps prevent code quality and code security issues from reaching production, amplifies developers’ productivity in concert with AI assistants, and improves the developer experience with streamlined workflows. Sonar analyzes all code, regardless of who writes it — your internal team, genAI, or third parties — resulting in more secure, reliable, and maintainable applications. Rooted in the open source community, Sonar’s solutions support over 30 programming languages, frameworks, and infrastructure technologies. Today, Sonar is used by +7M developers and 400K organizations worldwide, including the DoD, Microsoft, NASA, MasterCard, Siemens, and T-Mobile.

We believe in developing great products that are supported by great internal teams and a strong culture.  We are highly committed to and obsessed with the company, users, each other, and our open source community. We have high standards and hold each other accountable for acting with positivity, dedication, thoughtfulness, empathy, and passion daily.

We are deliberate with our decisions with high clarity of intention. At the same time, we feel extreme urgency and move forward quickly.

And lastly, we are highly effective and operationally efficient. We operate collectively as One Team to accomplish our goals.

At Sonar, CODE is more than just an acronym – it’s a mindset that defines daily operations.

Why You Should Apply:

At Sonar, we’re a group of brilliant, motivated, and driven professionals working hard to help supercharge developers to build better, faster. Sonar helps to continuously improve code quality and code security while reducing developer toil. This means that developers can focus on doing more of what they love and less of what they don’t. Our solutions don’t just solve symptoms of problems – we help fix issues at the source – for all code, whether it’s developer-written, AI-generated, or from third parties.

We have a dynamic culture with employees worldwide and hub offices in the USA, Switzerland, the UK, Singapore, and Germany. Team members should be able to come to work every day, work on a product they are proud of, love what they do, and feel energized by their peers. With our roots deep in the open source community, we’re all about the mission: supercharge developers to build better, faster.

The Impact You Will Have:

We are seeking a highly strategic and experienced Business Development professional to join Sonar as the Business Development Lead, AI & LLM Partnerships. Reporting directly to the Chief Growth Officer, you will spearhead Sonar’s efforts in this critical domain, building deep, impactful relationships and forging partnerships with leading Foundation Model / Large Language Model (LLM) developers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Cohere, Mistral). Your primary goal will be to establish collaborations that build on cutting-edge AI model development and Sonar’s unique IP to create innovative solutions for developers. This involves defining partnership structures, negotiating licensing and collaboration agreements, and developing joint go-to-market plans.

What You Will Do Daily:

• Strategy Development & Execution: Drive the execution of Sonar’s partnership strategy specifically with LLM providers and the broader Generative AI ecosystem, aligning closely with overall company growth objectives.
• Opportunity Identification & Analysis: Identify, evaluate, and prioritize strategic partnership opportunities. Conduct in-depth market analysis of the LLM landscape, tracking model releases, capabilities, and evolving partnership models.
• Relationship Building & Management: Build, nurture, and manage strong, long-term relationships with key technical, product, and business leaders at major LLM development companies and influential organizations in the AI space.
• Deal Negotiation & Execution: Lead the end-to-end partnership lifecycle with LLM providers: define engagement models, negotiate complex agreements focused on licensing, model training, co-development of solutions, and drive deals to closure.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with internal Sonar teams (Product Management, Engineering, Research, Legal, Marketing, Sales, Finance) to align on LLM partnership priorities, define technical requirements, develop joint solutions, ensure legal compliance, and advocate effectively for partners.
• Partnership Success & Growth: Track, measure, and report on the performance and impact of LLM partnerships to senior leadership, including the CGO and CEO. Manage relationships post-deal to ensure mutual success, identify new collaboration opportunities, and optimize ongoing engagements as the LLM landscape evolves.

The Experience You Will Need:

• MBA or advanced technical degree (e.g., MSCS, MSEE) with a focus on AI/ML.
• Direct, hands-on experience negotiating partnerships specifically with or for major AI Foundation Model / LLM providers.
• Experience with data licensing, IP licensing, technology collaboration in the AI space.
• Deep understanding of the AI landscape, with specific, in-depth knowledge of Foundation Models / Large Language Models (LLMs): key providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, etc.), model capabilities & limitations, common APIs, typical partnership structures, and legal considerations.
• Experience working in a high-growth or start-up environment focused on AI/ML.
• Established network within the AI / LLM developer community.10+ years of experience in business development, strategic alliances, technology partnerships, or related fields, preferably within the AI/ML and data science domains.
• Proven track record of successfully defining, negotiating, closing, and managing high-impact, technology-centric partnerships, ideally including experience working directly with AI/ML platform or model providers.
• Strong foundational knowledge of the software development lifecycle and ecosystem.
• Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with partners at both a deep technical level (understanding model architectures, APIs, integration challenges) and a strategic business level.
• Experience leading complex deal negotiations, including interpreting legal documents and working collaboratively with legal counsel on terms related to IP, data usage, liability, and service levels, particularly in the context of AI/ML services.
• Proven experience leading or significantly contributing to cross-functional teams to orchestrate and execute complex partnerships. Strong experience working directly with Product Management and Engineering/Research teams.
• Exceptional communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills, with experience influencing stakeholders at various levels, including senior executives.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to thrive, lead initiatives, and execute in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving, and often ambiguous technological landscape.
• Bachelor’s degree, preferably in a technical field like Data Science or Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.

Why You Will Love It Here:

• Our culture and mission set us apart. We have a dynamic work culture that values respect and kindness and embraces the right to fail (and get right back up again!).
• Great people make a great company. We value people skills as much as technical skills and strive to keep things friendly while still being passionate leaders in our domains.
• We have a flexible work policy that includes 3 days in-office and 2 days work-from-home each week for those located near our office locations; some locations such as Dubai, India, Japan and Australia operate fully remotely.
• We have a growth mindset. We love learning and believe continuous education is critical to our success. In an ever-changing industry, new skills are necessary, and we’re happy to help our team acquire them.
• As the leader in our field, our products and services are as strong as our internal team members.
• We embrace transparency with regular meetings, cascading messages and updates on the growth and success of our organization.

Benefits of Working With Sonar:

• Flexible comprehensive employee benefit package that is 90% paid by the company.
• We encourage usage of our robust time-off allocations.
• We offer an exciting 401(k) plan that has a 4% match, fully vested on day one of participation.
• Generous discretionary Company Growth Bonus, paid annually.
• Fully paid parking in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas.
• Global workforce with employees in 20+ countries representing 35+ unique nationalities.
• We have an annual kick-off somewhere in the world where we meet to build relationships and goals for the company.

We Value Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:

At Sonar, we believe that our diversity is our strength. We are a global company that values and respects different backgrounds, perspectives, and cultures.

We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute their best. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome all qualified applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

All offers of employment at Sonar are contingent upon the precise results of a comprehensive background check and reference verification conducted before the start date.

We do not currently support visa candidates in the US.

Applications that are submitted through agencies or third party recruiters will not be considered.