Developer Relations Lead

Bison; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical coverage

Dental & vision

401(k) plan

Relocation support

In-office snacks

Unlimited PTO

In-person team in San Francisco

Job summary

Zyphra is seeking a Developer Relations Lead in San Francisco to own and scale our developer community around open-source models and Maia. You will be the primary face to the global developer ecosystem, building credibility across GitHub, Discord, X, and at major industry events.

You will collaborate closely with research, engineering, and product teams to accelerate adoption, drive API usage, and translate technical milestones into engaging community moments.

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of experience in developer relations, advocacy, or open-source community management in AI or developer tools
• Demonstrated track record growing technical developer communities via GitHub, Discord/Slack, social channels, or conferences
• Comfort and credibility on stage: spoken at conferences, hosted workshops, or led demos for engineers
• Strong technical foundation in AI/ML and understanding of model architecture, inference, and deployment
• Natural communicator capable of explaining complex concepts across formats: talks, posts, and 1-on-1 discussions
• Self-directed, thrives in early-stage environments building community platforms and onboarding programs
• Familiarity with the open-source AI ecosystem, platforms, communities, events, and trusted voices

Responsibilities

• Own the developer community around Zyphra’s open-source models and Maia from the ground up
• Represent Zyphra to the global developer community across GitHub, Discord, X, and events
• Drive GitHub adoption metrics: stars, forks, issues, PRs, and contributor velocity
• Synthesize feedback from developers to inform research and product teams
• Build and execute a community growth strategy with launches, ambassador networks, and onboarding
• Drive API usage and model adoption by helping developers understand capabilities and differentiation
• Create technical content: guides, benchmarks, demos, deployment walkthroughs, and example projects
• Collaborate with GTM on model launches and open-source announcements

Skills

Developer relations

Open-source community

Public speaking

AI/ML knowledge

Technical communication

Self-directed

Community building

Tools

GitHub

Discord

Hugging Face

X

Job description

Zyphra is an artificial intelligence company based in San Francisco, California.

The Role:

As a Developer Relations Lead, you will own the developer community that forms around Zyphra’s open-source models and Zyphra’s AI agent, Maia from the ground up. You will be the primary face of Zyphra to the global developer community, building and scaling our presence on GitHub, Discord, X, and at the industry events that matter most. This is not a content production role. You are a technically credible practitioner who is also a natural community builder: someone developers trust, follow, and build with.

There is an early community already forming around Zyphra’s models. Your job is to find it, accelerate it, structure it, and turn it into one of the most active open-source AI communities in the field. You will be a critical member of the GTM team and work in close collaboration with Zyphra’s research, engineering, and product teams.

You’ll Work Across:

• Owning the development, expansion, and moderation of Zyphra’s developer community end-to-end across all public channels including Discord, GitHub, and Hugging Face while also growing our developer brand across X, LinkedIn, and other technical channels

• Representing Zyphra at AI conferences, developer summits, open-source events, academic forums, and community meetups: speaking, demoing, and building relationships that expand our reach and credibility in the developer ecosystem

• Driving GitHub adoption metrics across Zyphra’s open-source model repositories: stars, forks, issues, pull requests, and active contributor velocity as direct measures of ecosystem health

• Acting as the primary feedback channel between Zyphra’s developer community and the research and product teams, synthesizing what developers are building, where they are getting stuck, and what would unlock the next wave of adoption across modalities

• Building and executing a community growth strategy that converts each model release into sustained developer engagement: launch moments, contributor programs, ambassador networks, and structured onboarding for new community members

• Driving API consumption and model usage, helping developers understand what Zyphra’s models and agent can do, where they are differentiated, and how to get started quickly and successfully

• Creating and curating technical content that serves the community: integration guides, benchmark comparisons, use-case demos, deployment walkthroughs, and example projects that showcase what developers can build on Zyphra’s open foundation models and inference infrastructure

• Partnering with the GTM team on model launch strategy, open-source announcements, and developer-facing go-to-market motions that maximize community impact at each release

What We’re Looking For / Requirements:

• A genuine community participant, you have built with open-source AI models, understand how developers think about evaluating and integrating foundation models, and can speak credibly in technical conversations with researchers and engineers

• 3–6 years of experience in developer relations, developer advocacy, open-source community management, or a closely related technical role at an AI, ML, or developer tools company

• Demonstrated track record of building or meaningfully growing a technical developer community measured in GitHub engagement, Discord or Slack membership, social following, or conference presence

• Comfort and credibility on stage: you have spoken at developer conferences, hosted workshops, or led technical demos in front of audiences of engineers

• Strong technical foundation in AI and machine learning, you understand model architecture, inference, fine-tuning, and deployment well enough to engage authentically with the developers building on Zyphra’s models and Maia

• A natural communicator who can explain highly technical concepts clearly across formats: live presentations, written posts, short-form social content, and one-on-one developer conversations

• Self-directed and energized by building from scratch, you thrive in early-stage environments where the community platform, the content calendar, and the ambassador program all need to be created

• Deep familiarity with the open-source AI ecosystem: the platforms developers use, the communities they participate in, the events they attend, and the voices they trust

Qualifications / Additional Skills:

• Prior experience working at or closely with an open-source AI lab, model provider, or developer tools company where OSS community traction was a primary GTM objective

• Existing presence or credibility in the AI developer community: GitHub contributions, published technical content, conference talks, or a social following

• Experience running contributor programs, ambassador programs, or structured community initiatives that systematically expand developer engagement beyond organic growth

• Familiarity with community health metrics and the ability to build reporting frameworks that connect community activity to model adoption and API consumption

• Understanding of how developers evaluate and adopt open-source AI models, including the role of benchmarks, licensing, documentation quality, and inference performance in adoption decisions

• Experience collaborating with research teams to translate model releases, papers, and technical milestones into community moments that drive developer attention and engagement

• Breadth across modalities, familiarity with language, audio, vision, and/or BCI AI systems is a meaningful differentiator given the breadth of Zyphra’s model portfolio

• Comfort using AI tools (Claude, Cursor, etc.) to accelerate content creation, community management, and outreach workflows

Why Work at Zyphra:

• Zyphra is building at the frontier of AI and this role sits at the center of how that work gets seen

• You will build and help define the function, not inherit it; there is no legacy playbook to maintain

• We move with the urgency of a startup and the rigor of a research lab, speed and quality are not in tension here, they're expected together

• You will work directly alongside researchers, engineers, and founders, not through layers of management, which means your work gets seen, challenged, and improved fast

• We believe GTM can be a demonstration of what AI can do; you will be empowered to prove that

Benefits and Perks:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and FSA plans

• Competitive compensation and 401(k) plan

• Relocation and immigration support on a case-by-case basis

• In-office snacks and meals provided

• Unlimited PTO and company holidays

• In-person team in San Francisco with a collaborative, high-energy environment