Partnerships

Kernel

San Francisco (CA)

On-site

USD 180,000 - 240,000

Full time

43 hours ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Industry-competitive salary

Above market equity

Medical + dental coverage + dependent

Senior + staff engineers team

Async work culture

Daily lunches

Unlimited PTO

401k + company match

Relocation assistance

Job summary

KERNEL is hiring a Partnerships Lead to build and grow a network of partners that brings developers and startups to KERNEL. You will own partner programs end to end, from prioritization to onboarding, launch, and measuring impact, working closely with Sales for handoffs and with Product for roadmap alignment.

You will focus on strategic ecosystems and cloud/data platform partnerships, aiming to drive adoption and growth across mature and emerging product lines.

Qualifications

Built or scaled a partner, startup, or ecosystem program at a developer-focused or PLG company and held accountability for results.
Autonomy and ownership are valued over years of experience.
Experience with partner programs like AWS (APN, Marketplace, Activate) or Databricks.
Good judgement to select partnerships worth pursuing.
Technically fluent to earn engineers' trust and understand developer docs and APIs.
Daily use of AI to tackle high-value problems and drive impact.

Responsibilities

Define strategy, programs, and outcome metrics for partnership work; prioritize top partners.
Build and run partner programs end to end: offer, onboarding, launch, and measurement.
Turn partners into growth: activated startups, marketplace adoption, partner-sourced signups.
Incorporate partner feedback into the Product roadmap.
Pursue high-upside partnerships with Product/Engineering.
Take partnerships to market: shape positioning, co-marketing, docs, and launches.

Skills

Autonomy

Founder experience

Engineering trust

AI usage

Tools

AWS APN Marketplace Activate

Databricks

Job description

About KERNEL

KERNEL is infrastructure for AI agents to use the internet. Agents buy things, run back-office operations and test apps on KERNEL cloud browsers designed for performance, reliability and scale, with identity, observability and payments built in. KERNEL works with any agent harness or model and is trusted by Town, Middesk, Framer, Vercel and more than 20,000 teams. Founded in 2025, we are backed by $22M+ from top investors including Accel and Y Combinator.

Our vision is to be the Internet runtime for agents. Agent traffic now outpaces human traffic. The web needs new rails for access, identity, and trust and we're building them.

The role

We're hiring a Partnerships Lead to build and grow a network of partners that brings developers and startups to KERNEL. KERNEL is a product-led company: most teams find us, sign up, and grow on their own. You will multiply that motion through the platforms, investors, and partners our customers already know and rely on.

You'll own partner programs end to end: which partners to prioritize, what we offer them, and how we measure success. Our sales team owns commercial sales and enterprise contracts, and you'll work closely with them on handoffs. Your goal is adoption and growth, for both KERNEL’s mature and emerging product offerings.

As KERNEL grows, you'll move toward the highest-leverage partnerships and spot new ones before anyone asks. Your scope will follow the most impactful work.

Where you might focus

You'll own the areas below, and will likely start with the first two.

Ecosystem. Some things you might work on: continue building out KERNEL's VC partner network; expanding our Startup Program (credits, support, perks); turning portfolio intros into activated teams; measuring which partners send startups that grow.
Cloud + Data Platforms. Some things you might work on: running our AWS (Activate, APN, Marketplace) and Databricks partnerships; managing tech partner program requirements, listings, and validations; co-marketing and joint content; working with partner teams to bring KERNEL into their customers' workflows.
Strategic Products. With Product and Engineering, pursue a small number of high-upside partnerships that support new product lines or open new distribution for KERNEL.

You will:

Define the strategy, programs, and outcome metrics for KERNEL's partnership work. Prioritize the partners that matter most, and say no to the rest.
Build and run partner programs end to end, from the offer and agreement to onboarding, launch, and measuring impact.
Turn partners into growth: activated startups, marketplace adoption, partner-sourced signups, and usage that sticks.
Bring partner and developer feedback into the Product team roadmap.
Identify and pursue a small number of high-upside partnerships with Product and Engineering.
Take partnerships to market: shape positioning, co-marketing, docs, and launches with Product and Marketing.

What we're looking for

You've built or scaled a partner, startup, or ecosystem program at a developer-focused or PLG company, and you were accountable for its results.
We care more about autonomy and ownership than years of experience. Founder or early-employee experience is a plus.
You've worked with partner programs like AWS (APN, Marketplace, Activate), Databricks, other cloud marketplaces, or VC platform teams, and you know how to get real value out of them.
You have excellent judgment and taste. You know which partnerships are worth the time, and you can walk us through how you decided.
You're technically fluent enough to earn engineers' trust. Our customers are developers: you can explain how KERNEL works and understand developer documentation and APIs.
You use AI in your daily work and steer it well on the highest-value problems.
You communicate clearly in writing and in person.
You're excited to work on the frontier of the Agentic Internet, where standards are still undefined and the ecosystem is still taking shape.