Partner Director, AWS Alliances
Job description
About the Team
OpenAI's GTM Partnerships team builds a strategic, global partner ecosystem designed to accelerate customer success, support secure AI adoption, and drive growth in support of OpenAI's mission toward AGI. We collaborate closely across sales, technical success, product, marketing, operations, and leadership teams to turn strategic partnerships into durable commercial outcomes.
Within that team, the AWS alliance is a top priority. Success requires more than executive alignment. It requires field enablement, disciplined co-sell execution, strong operating rigor, and fast feedback loops back into the business.
About the Role
We are hiring a Partner Director, AWS Alliances to help build and scale OpenAI's in-market operating motion with AWS. This person will serve as a field-facing leader responsible for enabling AWS sellers, shaping joint account and opportunity strategy, and helping qualified opportunities move efficiently through the co-sell motion.
This is a revenue-oriented partnerships role for a high-output operator who can translate alliance strategy into pipeline, partner-attached revenue, and repeatable execution. The right candidate knows how to earn mindshare with cloud field teams, navigate ambiguity, and build simple operating mechanisms that scale.
This role is based in NYC, SF or Remote US. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
Build trusted relationships with AWS Account Managers, Solutions Architects, Specialists, and regional segment leaders to create durable seller mindshare.
Enable AWS field teams on positioning, use cases, qualification logic, and how to engage OpenAI effectively.
Own the in-market operating relationship with AWS sellers across account mapping, joint planning, deal coordination, and escalation management.
Identify, shape, and support qualified opportunities emerging from AWS accounts, in close partnership with OpenAI sales and technical teams.
Drive strong co-sell hygiene across ACE, Marketplace, opportunity tracking, follow-up, and next-step discipline.
Develop repeatable sales plays, enablement assets, and field communications that help AWS teams operate more independently over time.
Aggregate structured feedback from AWS sellers and customers and translate it into clear recommendations for product, GTM, and operations teams.
Help define the operating model, engagement thresholds, and regional strategy that make the AWS motion scalable as demand grows.
Collaborate cross-functionally with Partner SAs, Cloud Specialist Sellers, Product, Engineering, Partner Marketing, Partner Ops, and GTM leadership to unblock deals and improve execution.
Represent OpenAI with executive presence in customer, partner, and internal leadership conversations where commercial judgment and clarity matter.
We're seeking someone with experience including:
8+ years in partnerships, ecosystem sales, cloud alliances, business development, or related go-to-market roles within SaaS, cloud, or platform businesses.
Meaningful experience working closely with AWS field teams and strong familiarity with AWS co-sell motions, including ACE, Marketplace, and partner-led sales engagement models.
A proven track record of driving revenue through partnerships, not just managing partner relationships.
Experience supporting complex enterprise opportunities with direct sales teams, including deal strategy, qualification, technical coordination, and stakeholder alignment.
Comfort engaging CIOs, CTOs, and senior business leaders in strategic conversations and communicating technical value propositions clearly.
Experience building sales plays, enablement content, operating cadences, and scalable field motions in high-growth environments.
Strong technical fluency and cloud credibility, with enough depth to engage productively with architects and technical decision-makers.
A demonstrated ability to operate with high ownership in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where the playbook is still being built.
Excellent cross-functional influence, including the ability to align sales, product, engineering, operations, and leadership stakeholders without formal authority.
You might thrive in this role if you:
Are a builder. You like creating structure where none exists and turning messy partnership motions into simple, repeatable systems.
Have a sales mindset. You naturally orient toward pipeline, deal quality, seller activation, and measurable commercial outcomes.
Are highly credible with partners and executives. You know how to earn trust quickly, communicate clearly, and handle escalations calmly.
Operate with urgency and judgment. You can manage volume, prioritize ruthlessly, and know when a deal deserves deeper engagement.
Enjoy technical learning. You do not need to be the product expert in the room, but you are comfortable learning quickly and translating technical concepts into business value.
Are excited by AI and cloud platform shifts and motivated by the opportunity to help define how OpenAI scales through strategic ecosystems.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.