Business Development Manager (GEN AI focus)

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

Job summary

Alibaba Cloud Global team in Sunnyvale seeks a Business Development Manager to build and own relationships with AI-native startups across the U.S. You will understand architectures and business models, including LLM fine-tuning, RAG pipelines, AI agent orchestration, CV, and generative apps, and position Alibaba Cloud’s AI stack.

You will drive adoption from proof-of-concept to production, collaborate with Solutions Architects, and represent Alibaba Cloud at conferences and VC meetings.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS, Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years in customer-facing technical sales or developer relations.
• Deep understanding of modern AI stacks and related tools.
• Excellent communication and ability to explain complex tech to non-technical audiences.
• Willingness to travel ~50% across the U.S.

Responsibilities

• Build and own relationships with AI-native startups across the U.S.
• Understand architectures and business models of AI-native companies including LLM fine-tuning, RAG pipelines, AI agent orchestration, CV, and generative apps.
• Position Alibaba Cloud’s AI stack and related products (Tongyi Qianwen, PAI, GPU/ML instances, vector storage OSS).
• Drive adoption from proof-of-concept to production usage.
• Collaborate with Solutions Architects to design tailored, competitive solutions.
• Represent Alibaba Cloud at AI conferences and VC partner meetings.
• Feed customer insights back to product teams to improve tooling.

Skills

Customer-facing sales

Solutions engineering

Developer relations

Technical sales

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Vector databases

MLOps tools

Job description

Alibaba Cloud Global team is looking for Business Development Managers based in Sunnyvale.

Key Responsibilities

• 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).
• 5+ 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.

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.