Startup Program Lead

LiveKit; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and equity package

Health, dental, and vision benefits

Flexible vacation policy

Job summary

LiveKit is seeking a Startup Program Lead to own the LiveKit Startups Program end-to-end, from offer design to onboarding founders. You will forge relationships with accelerators and funds and expand partnerships to provide a broader tech stack to startups.

The role demands strategic thinking, cross-functional collaboration, and rigorous operational execution. You will drive the program's health, measure outcomes, and be the founders' advocate inside LiveKit, coordinating with product, docs, and

Qualifications

• 5+ years in startup programs, ecosystem or platform partnerships or developer growth.
• Experience building programs, criteria, terms, and landing pages.
• Comfort with commercial aspects and partner agreements.
• Technical credibility with developers; capable of discussing architecture.

Responsibilities

• Own the LiveKit Startups Program end-to-end: offer contents, founder outreach, and candidate experience.
• Establish relationships with accelerators and funds (e.g., YC, a16z, HF0, etc.).
• Expand the program by integrating additional stack providers through partnerships.
• Run operations: application reviews, provisioning, partner reporting, and monthly cycles.
• Own program health metrics: team turnout, working agents in first week, user satisfaction.
• Be the founders' voice inside LiveKit; relay feedback to product, docs, and pricing.

Skills

Startup programs

Ecosystem partnerships

Developer growth

GTM for dev infra

Founder experience

Job description

About LiveKit

LiveKit is building the infrastructure layer for the voice-driven era of computing. Our platform gives developers everything they need to build, test, deploy, scale, and observe agents in production. Founded in 2021, LiveKit powers voice AI applications for OpenAI, xAI, Salesforce, Coursera, Spotify, and thousands of others, collectively facilitating billions of calls each year.

About This Role

LiveKit is looking for a Startup Program Lead to own LiveKit Startups, the program that gives early-stage teams building voice AI the credits and the stack they need to get to a working product, through a single application.

Building a voice agent means assembling a lot of moving parts, and most of that assembly happens in the weeks when a team has the least budget and the least leverage with any vendor. The program exists to take that off a founder's plate at exactly the point it's most in the way.

You own the program end to end: what's in the offer, how founders find it, the partnerships that make it possible, and what happens to a team once they're in.

You'll thrive in this role if you:

• Have worked directly with early stage founders and know the difference between what helps them be successful.

• Do your best work with a team around you, and just as good work when it's only you.

• Are strategic and big-picture, and just as capable of handling the tactical details yourself.

• Are highly organized, communicate clearly, and have worked cross-functionally across teams and outside your own company.

What You'll Do

• Own the LiveKit Startups Program end-to-end: what's in the offer, how founders find it, how quickly they hear back, and what their experience is once they're in.

• Open new front doors. Accelerators and funds are how most founders will first hear about this: YC, Founders Inc, Boost VC, HF0, South Park Commons, a16z and beyond. Each one is a relationship you own.

• Bring more of the stack into the program. We work with speech and voice model providers so that a founder gets more than LiveKit out of a single application. Widening that set means building and negotiating those partnerships yourself.

• Run the operations that make the program trustworthy: application review and approval, provisioning, partner reporting, and a monthly cycle that has to close accurately every time.

• Own the program's health: how many teams join, how many get to a working agent in their first week, and whether the experience is good enough that they stay.

• Be the founders' voice inside LiveKit. Share feedback with product, docs, and pricing.

Who You Are

• 5+ years in startup programs, ecosystem or platform partnerships, developer growth, or GTM at a developer infrastructure company. Founder experience counts.

• You've built a program rather than inherited one. You've written the criteria, the terms, the landing page, and the follow-up email.

• Comfortable on the commercial side. You can structure a partner agreement and manage external relationships.

• Technically credible with developers. You don't need to write production code, but you should be able to talk architecture with a founder without an engineer in the room.

• Operationally rigorous. This program runs on a repeating monthly cycle, and you're the reason it doesn't slip.

Bonus Points

• Time inside an accelerator or on a VC platform team.

• You've built or shipped something with voice AI, LLM agents, or real-time infrastructure.

• Experience with usage-based pricing or credit systems.

• An existing network in the early-stage AI ecosystem. Founders, scouts, platform leads.

Our Commitment to You

• An opportunity to build something truly impactful to the world

• Contribute to open source alongside world-class engineers

• Competitive salary and equity package

• Health, dental, and vision benefits

• Flexible vacation policy

LiveKit is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of any characteristic protected by applicable law. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact [e-mail].