Deal Strategy

Black.ai; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity compensation

US medical/dental/vision coverage

Flexible PTO (Winter Break)

Parental leave

401(k) plan (US)

Learning and networking opportunities

Job summary

Baseten is seeking a senior leader to own the commercial structuring and economics of its top customer deals. You will partner with Sales, Finance, and Legal to drive complex, non-standard agreements that scale revenue while managing risk.

This role is ideal for someone with strong commercial judgment, analytical rigor, and a desire to build a deal strategy function from scratch at a hypergrowth AI platform.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in deal strategy, pricing, strategic finance, investing, or revenue ops at a high-growth tech company.
• Proven track record in structuring and negotiating complex enterprise deals, especially consumption-based.
• Strong commercial judgment and ability to negotiate with customers and executives.
• Excellent financial modeling, system design, and analytical skills.
• Ability to earn trust of sales teams and influence senior leaders across functions.
• Proficiency with CPQ/CRM tools and understanding impact on billing/revenue.
• Clear written and verbal communication translating complex deals for executives.

Responsibilities

• Deal Structuring: partner with Sales to meet customer needs while protecting Baseten's interests.
• Customer Negotiations: join conversations with senior finance and procurement stakeholders.
• Financial Analysis: assess profitability, margins, and discounts with data-driven recommendations.
• Deal Review & Approvals: manage non-standard terms and escalation paths for speed.
• Cross-Functional Execution: align Legal, Revenue Accounting, RevOps, and Billing.
• Pricing Insights: monitor discounts, win rates, and pricing policy impacts.
• Process & Systems: build scalable playbooks and workflows using automation.

Skills

Deal structuring

Pricing strategy

Financial modeling

Negotiations

Cross-functional collaboration

Revenue operations

Stakeholder management

Contract terms

Tools

CPQ/CRM tools

Job description

ABOUT BASETEN

Baseten powers mission-critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies, like Cursor, Notion, OpenEvidence, Abridge, Clay, Gamma, and Writer. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies operating at the frontier of AI to bring cutting-edge models into production. We're growing quickly and recently raised our $1.5B Series F, led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners, and Spark Capital. Join us and help build the platform engineers turn to ship AI products.

THE ROLE

You will own the commercial structuring and economics of Baseten's highest-priority customer deals end to end. You will play a critical role in scaling our revenue by serving as a trusted partner to Sales, Finance, and Legal on complex and non-standard deals. You'll help our products reach customers quickly while maintaining the financial discipline and risk management that a fast-scaling AI company requires.

This role is ideal for someone who has excellent commercial judgment, is highly analytical, and wants to build the deal strategy function from the ground up at a hypergrowth company. You'll help define how the world's leading AI companies buy inference and directly impact our most strategic customer relationships.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Deal Structuring: Partner with Sales to structure deals that meet customer needs while protecting Baseten's financial and strategic interests, spanning pricing, discounts, commitments, and contract terms.


• Customer Negotiations: Join customer conversations and represent Baseten with senior finance and procurement stakeholders, bringing pricing and commercial depth so the account team can stay focused on the relationship.


• Financial Analysis: Conduct deal profitability, margin, and discount impact analysis, and translate the results into clear, data-driven recommendations for leadership.


• Deal Review and Approvals: Review enterprise deals that fall outside standard parameters, and own the approval thresholds and escalation paths that keep decisions moving quickly.


• Cross-Functional Execution: Partner with Legal, Revenue Accounting, RevOps, and Billing to ensure every deal is contracted, booked, and billed accurately.


• Pricing Insights: Track discounting, win rates, and deal outcomes across the book, and use those insights to shape pricing, packaging, and commercial policy.


• Process and Systems: Build the playbooks, guidelines, and workflows that let our deal process scale with the business. Use AI and automation extensively to keep the function fast and lean as deal volume grows.

THE REQUIREMENTS

• 8+ years of experience in deal strategy, pricing, strategic finance, investing, and/or revenue operations at a high-growth technology company


• Proven track record of structuring and negotiating complex enterprise deals, especially in a consumption-based environment


• Strong commercial judgment, with the presence to negotiate directly with customers and represent Baseten externally


• Excellent system design, financial modeling, and analytical skills


• Ability to earn the trust of sales teams and influence senior leaders across Sales, Finance, and Legal


• Proficiency in CPQ/CRM tools and a strong understanding of how deal terms affect billing and revenue recognition


• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to turn complex deal structures into clear recommendations for executives

STRONG CANDIDATES MAY ALSO HAVE

• Experience at an AI, cloud infrastructure, or data platform company


• Familiarity with GPU and compute economics


• Experience building a deal desk or deal strategy function from scratch


• Prior quantitative experience

BENEFITS

• Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity


• (U.S. only) 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents


• Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)


• Paid parental leave


• Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot


• (U.S. only) Company-facilitated 401(k)


• Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.

At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).