Member of Strategic Staff, Model Ecosystem

Runway; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Runway is building an ecosystem of generative models and seeks an IC to source, activate, and scale partnerships across our growing portfolio. The role spans negotiating terms, coordinating with Legal, Finance, and Engineering, and turning conversations into launches.

You will own partner relationships from first contact to launch, track the landscape for new opportunities, and build scalable playbooks to advance the company’s mission in AI simulation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in partnerships, BD, GTM, consulting, or founding/operating with outcomes owned end to end.
• Experience negotiating commercial agreements (usage-based, API or platform deals).
• Genuine obsession with generative AI and labs; evaluate new models as soon as they ship.
• Proven track record closing deals, integrations and launches.
• High technical aptitude for understanding complex technologies, tools, systems.
• Strong analytical capabilities turning usage/spend data into recommendations.
• Ability to manage many relationships and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Clear, concise communication with diverse teams from founders to engineers.
• Bias toward action and comfort working autonomously amid ambiguity.
• New York-based preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own a broad portfolio of model partners end to end, across modalities.
• Track the model landscape relentlessly and surface strong candidates for integration.
• Source, structure and negotiate commercial terms; close with Legal and Finance.
• Be the partner's main contact through launch, coordinating with Engineering.
• Build deep relationships with founders, BD leads and research teams for early access and favorable terms.
• Run the portfolio with rigor: set check-ins, monitor relationship health, spot risk early.
• Track usage, spend and margin by partner and model to inform investments or renegotiations.
• Partner with Marketing and our partners on co-marketing for model launches.
• Build frameworks and tools to scale the function as the ecosystem grows.

Skills

Portfolio ownership

Partnership development

Negotiation

GTM strategy

Stakeholder management

Analytical thinking

Communication

Ambiguity navigation

Autonomy

Executive-level collaboration

Job description

We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science.We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won't solve the world's hardest problems - robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world.World models offer the most clear path to general-purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached.Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team.

*Titles posted to our careers page are updated regularly to best advertise the role and expected seniority, but internally we have a flat titling system with two types of titles: one for individual contributors and one for people managers.

About the role

Open to hiring remote across the US — we also have offices in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv.Runway is rapidly building the leading ecosystem of generative models, bringing the best models from AI labs around the world to our users alongside our own. We are looking for an IC to source, activate, and scale relationships across Runway's growing portfolio of model partners. This is a role for someone who wants to own whatever needs owning, take new models from first conversation to launch, and write the playbook where none exists yet. You will work closely across Engineering, Product, Legal, Finance, and Marketing.

What you'll do

• Own a broad portfolio of model partners end to end, across modalities
• Track the model landscape relentlessly: spot new labs and releases early and bring the strongest ones to the team as candidates for integration
• Take new partners from zero to launched: source, structure and negotiate commercial terms, then close with Legal and Finance
• Be the partner's main point of contact through launch, working closely with our engineering team
• Build deep, trusted relationships with founders, BD leads and research teams at our partners, and turn those relationships into early access, better terms and joint launches
• Run the portfolio with rigor: set check-in cadences, monitor relationship health, and spot and escape risk early
• Track usage, spend and margin by partner and model, and use that data to decide where to invest, renegotiate or step back
• Partner with Marketing and our partners on co-marketing for model launches
• Build the frameworks and tools that let the function scale as the ecosystem grows

What you'll need

• 5+ years of experience across some combination of partnerships, business development, GTM, consulting, or founding/operating, with a track record of having owned outcomes end to end
• Experience negotiating commercial agreements, ideally usage-based, API or platform deals
• Genuine obsession with generative AI: you know the labs, you try new models the day they ship, and you have opinions on what makes one good
• Demonstrated range: you've done the deal and the integration and the launch
• High technical aptitude for understanding complex technologies, tools, systems, and issues
• Strong analytical capabilities, with the ability to turn usage and spend data into a clear recommendation
• Ability to manage many relationships and priorities at once in a fast-paced environment without dropping threads
• Clear, concise communication, from a startup founder to a big-lab partnerships team to a Runway engineer in the same day
• A strong bias towards action and belief that no task is too small for you
• Highly resourceful, with the ability to create structure and work autonomously amid ambiguity
• New York-based preferred

Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.

Working at Runway

Great things come from great teams. We're committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you,

More about Runway

• Universal World Simulator
• GWM-1
• Gen-4.5
• General World Models
• Robotics SDK
• Conversational Real-time Agents
• Runway Studios

We're excited to be recognized as a best place to work:Crain's | InHerSight | BuiltIn NYC | INC