Business Development Manager (AI-native)

Alibaba Cloud; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 156,000 - 256,000; Full time

Job summary

Alibaba Cloud in Sunnyvale, CA is seeking a Technical Pre-Sales / Solutions Engineer focused on AI-native startups. You will build relationships with founders, CTOs, and engineers across the U.S., and articulate how Tongyi Qianwen, PAI, and other AI stack components meet their needs.

You will compare Alibaba Cloud offerings to AWS, Azure, and GCP, help startups move from PoC to production, and collaborate with Solutions Architects to tailor cost-efficient, low-latency deployments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in CS/engineering.
• 3+ years in customer-facing technical sales or related role in cloud/AI.
• Strong ability to explain complex concepts to engineers and non-tech audiences.
• Willingness to travel ~50% across the U.S.

Responsibilities

• Build relationships with AI-native startups’ founders, CTOs, engineers, and product leaders across the U.S.
• Understand architectures and business models of AI-native companies.
• Position Alibaba Cloud’s AI stack as the best option for cost, performance, and innovation.
• Drive adoption from proof-of-concept to scaled production usage.
• Collaborate with Solutions Architects to design tailored, competitive AI solutions.
• Compare Alibaba Cloud with AWS, Azure, and GCP on openness and cost.
• Represent Alibaba Cloud at AI conferences and startup events.
• Provide customer insights to product teams to improve tooling.

Skills

Technical Sales

Customer-facing

Communication

Cloud Platforms

AI/ML Concepts

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

LangChain/LlamaIndex

vLLM

TGI

Model Serving

MLOps Tools

Job description

• Build and own relationships with AI-native companies founders, CTOs, engineers, and product leaders across the U.S.
• Understand technical architectures and business models of AI-native companies—including LLM fine-tuning, RAG pipelines, AI agent orchestration, computer vision, and generative applications.
• Position Alibaba Cloud’s AI stack—including Tongyi Qianwen (Qwen) models, PAI (Platform for AI), GPU/ML-optimized instances, OSS for vector storage, and serverless inference—as the optimal infrastructure for cost, performance, and innovation.
• Drive adoption and expansion from initial proof-of-concept through scaled production usage, with a focus on AI-specific consumption (e.g., GPU hours, model hosting, API calls).
• Collaborate with Solutions Architects and AI specialists to design tailored, competitive solutions that solve real startup pain points: cost-efficient training, low-latency inference, global deployment, etc.
• Navigate complex technical evaluations and help startups compare Alibaba Cloud vs. competitors (AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, GCP Vertex AI) based on openness, pricing, and flexibility.
• Represent Alibaba Cloud at AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, AWS re:Invent Startup events, TechCrunch Disrupt), incubators (Y Combinator, a16z events), and VC partner meetings.
• Act as the voice of the customer—feeding insights back to product teams to improve developer experience, documentation, and AI tooling.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 3+ years in a customer-facing technical sales, solutions engineering, or developer relations role—preferably in cloud, AI/ML, or infrastructure.
• Deep understanding of modern AI stacks: familiarity with transformers, fine-tuning, quantization, vector databases, LangChain/LlamaIndex, inference optimization, and MLOps tools.
• Proven ability to explain complex technical concepts clearly to both engineers and non-technical business audiences.
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills—you build trust quickly and thrive in ambiguous, founder-led environments.
• Willingness to travel extensively (~50% of time) across the U.S. to meet customers in person.

Preferred

• Experience working with or at an AI-native companies (as employee, advisor, or investor).
• Hands-on experience deploying models on cloud platforms (Alibaba Cloud, AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Familiarity with open-weight models, model serving frameworks (vLLM, TGI), and cost/performance tradeoffs in inference.
• Genuine enthusiasm for AI innovation—you follow arXiv papers, experiment with open models (e.g., Llama, Mistral, Qwen), or build side projects with AI agents.
• Existing network in the U.S. AI/VC/startup ecosystem.

The base pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $156,000/year and $255,600/year. However, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.