Founding Partnership Lead - Ecosystem / Product Partnerships

Terminal; Toronto; On-site; CAD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Terminal, based in Toronto, is seeking a Founding Partnership Lead to establish key partnerships for their ecosystem. You'll define and manage partnerships, ensuring control and ownership for partners while driving integrations.

The ideal candidate should have 5-7 years experience in ecosystem partnerships and be able to operationalize complex collaborations effectively. The role demands a results-driven approach and comfort with ambiguity within a fast-paced startup environment.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years in ecosystem partnerships or related fields in a technical product environment.
• Proven ability to close and operationalize partnerships.

Responsibilities

• Build the partner supply pipeline and close strategic partnerships.
• Drive product-led integrations and partner activation.
• Scale the partnership function with a repeatable operating model.

Skills

Ecosystem partnerships

API/data partnerships

Operationalize partnerships

Building partnerships

Entrepreneurship

Results-driven

Comfortable with ambiguity

Job description

About Terminal

Terminal is Plaid for Telematics in commercial trucking. Companies building the next generation of insurance products, financial services and fleet software for trucking use our Universal API to access GPS data, speeding data and vehicle stats. We are a fast-growing, venture-backed startup supported by top investors including Y Combinator, Golden Ventures and Wayfinder Ventures. Our exceptionally talented team is based in Toronto, Canada.

For more info, check out our website: https://withterminal.com

Note: This role is only available to Toronto/GTA-based candidates

About the role

We’re hiring a Founding Partnership Lead to establish Terminal’s ecosystem partnership motion from the ground up. This is a product-focused partnerships role: you will build supply-side partnerships that convert telematics feeds into broad, auditable distribution for application-ready telematics - without partners losing ownership, attribution, or control.

Partner focus:

1. Telematics service providers (TSPs)
2. Original equipment manufacturer (OEMs)
3. Enrichment Data providers

You’ll be a builder: set the strategy, close partners end-to-end, and operationalize repeatable onboarding and activation. Entrepreneurship/0→1 experience is a strong advantage; we want someone who is results-driven and comfortable with ambiguity.

What you’ll do

1) Build the partner supply pipeline + close strategic partnerships (hands-on)

• Define partner ICPs/segmentation and build a targeted sourcing plan across TSPs, OEMs, and data providers.
• Run partner deals end-to-end: discovery → technical diligence → commercial negotiation → signed agreement → launch plan.
• Negotiate data rights, attribution/provenance, permissioning/consent, auditability, SLAs, and commercialization (where applicable).
• Create crisp partner-facing materials (deck, one-pager, standard deal constructs) and internal deal review cadence.

2) Drive product-led integrations + partner activation (distribution outcomes)

• Liaison between partner needs and Terminal roadmap to ensure smooth onboarding path: technical scoping, integration approach (API/webhooks/file), auth/rate-limit alignment, mapping readiness, testing, and go-live.
• Work tightly with the Product & Integration Engineering team to ensure integrations are production-grade (retries, rate limits, schema drift handling, diagnostics, freshness/SLA reporting).
• Ensure integrations translate into real downstream consumption (insurers, fleet platforms, fuel cards, logistics/transportation platforms).

3) Build the playbook and scale the function (repeatability > heroics)

• Codify a repeatable partner operating model: lifecycle stages, onboarding checklist, standard timelines, templates, escalation paths, and partner enablement assets.
• Build lightweight instrumentation and reporting: onboarding funnel, time-to-live, activation, incident/support load, and expansion.
• Establish cross-functional rhythms so partner friction turns into product improvements (not recurring fire drills).
• Define the scaling plan (partner ops / solutions / partner engineering) and participate in hiring over time.

What we’re looking for

• 5-7 years in ecosystem partnerships, platform partnerships, API/data partnerships, or BD in a technical product environment.
• Demonstrated ability to close and operationalize partnerships (not just perform relationship management).