Developer Relations Manager Institute of Foundation Models · USD 150k-250k/yr Sunnyvale, CA, US Workplace On-site 9 hours ago

Content Creators; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision benefits

Bonus

401K Plan

Paid time off

Parental leave

Employee Assistance Program

Life insurance and disability

Job summary

IFM is seeking a Developer Relations Manager in Silicon Valley to drive adoption of its foundation models. You will work with users and builders across the full journey, from discovery to sustained use, translating experiences into model improvements and earning trust through technical evidence.

The role requires hands-on experience with LLMs, strong Python skills, and ability to explain capabilities and trade-offs to developers. Up to 25% travel is mentioned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS, Engineering or related field or equivalent experience.
• Experience in developer relations or applied AI engineering.
• Hands-on building/evaluating/deploying apps with LLMs; understand trade-offs.
• Strong Python skills for building examples and diagnostics.
• Portfolio of technical docs, tutorials or open-source contributions.

Responsibilities

• Build relationships with model users and developers to drive adoption from discovery to sustained use.
• Develop and maintain model guidance, docs and tested examples for developers and coding agents.
• Demonstrate IFM LLMs through talks, workshops and demos to explain capabilities and limitations.
• Collaborate with ecosystem partners to enable reliable use in frameworks and tools.
• Identify adoption barriers and translate findings into evaluation cases and research priorities.
• Work with DevEx and model engineers to prioritize improvements and validate results.
• Engage early users before release and track integration success and adoption.

Skills

Python

LLMs deployment

Technical documentation

Developer relations

Open-source

Cross-functional collaboration

LLM ecosystem

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

GitHub

Tool calling

Structured outputs

Agent workflows

Job description

About IFM

The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is a global AI research lab dedicated to open and independent development of frontier-class foundation models. Launched in May 2025 by MBZUAI, IFM operates from advanced lab facilities in Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley and Paris. IFM’s model portfolio includes K2 series, the fully open-source fleet of LLMs; Jais, the most advanced Arabic LLM; and PAN, the next-gen World Model for embodied reasoning and real-world simulation.

Role Summary

The Developer Relations Manager drives developer adoption of IFM’s large language models (LLMs). With the model itself as the product, the role helps model users, humans and agents alike, understand its capabilities, evaluate its suitability and build with it.

Based in Silicon Valley, you will work closely with users and builders across the full developer journey, from discovery and evaluation to integration and sustained use. You will work with researchers and engineers to translate that experience into model improvements, earning trust on both sides and using technical evidence to influence priorities without direct authority.

This is a hands-on technical role requiring practical experience building with LLMs and a sound understanding of their capabilities, limitations and use in real applications.

Travel requirement: Up to 25%

Key Responsibilities

• Build relationships with model users and builders, identify valuable use cases, and support adoption from discovery and evaluation through integration and sustained use.
• Develop and maintain model guidance, documentation and tested examples for human developers and coding agents, including tool calling, structured outputs and multi-step workflows.
• Represent IFM’s LLMs through technical demonstrations, talks and workshops, explaining their capabilities and limitations clearly and working with Community to reach relevant builders.
• Work with ecosystem partners and open-source maintainers to enable reliable use of IFM’s models in relevant frameworks, inference tools and agent environments.
• Investigate adoption barriers and reproduce issues across model behavior, integration and deployment, translating findings into evaluation cases and recommendations that influence research priorities.
• Work with Developer Experience (DevEx) and model engineers to prioritize technical improvements, resolve issues and validate results with users.
• Engage early users before release, assess readiness for developer use, and track successful integrations, task outcomes and sustained adoption after launch.

Qualifications

Academic qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Minimum requirements

• Experience in developer relations, applied AI engineering, developer experience or a comparable technical role, with a track record of helping developers adopt technical products.
• Hands-on experience building, evaluating and deploying applications with LLMs, with sound judgment about model capabilities, limitations and trade-offs in quality, latency and cost.
• Strong Python skills, with the ability to independently build working examples, test integrations and diagnose problems.
• A portfolio of clear technical documentation, tutorials, demonstrations or open-source contributions, supported by experience explaining complex concepts directly to developers.
• Experience working closely with researchers and engineers, using reproducible evidence and clear reasoning to influence priorities without direct authority.
• Familiarity with the LLM developer ecosystem, including inference tools, application frameworks and agent workflows, and experience collaborating with technical users, partners or maintainers.

Preferred experience

• Contributing to model launches, early-access programs or open-source integrations.
• Working with open-weight models, including fine-tuning or self-hosted deployment.
• Developing guidance and examples that coding agents can use reliably, alongside supporting human developers.

Visa Sponsorship

This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Benefits Include

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits
• Bonus
• 401K Plan
• Generous paid time off, sick leave and holidays
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Life insurance and disability