About the role
About Us
Fireworks is the platform for specialized intelligence, enabling companies to build, train, and serve AI models tailored to their own data, workflows, and products. Founded by the team behind PyTorch and backed by AMD, Atreides, Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, and TCV, Fireworks powers production AI with hundreds of state-of-the-art open models across text, image, embedding, audio, and multimodal workloads. Today, Fireworks is a Series D company valued at $17.5 billion, bringing together an ambitious, collaborative team that's building the future of enterprise AI.
About the Role
We're looking for a Head of Startups & Venture Capital to build and lead Fireworks' startup ecosystem: the programs, partnerships, and relationships that make Fireworks the default AI platform for the next generation of AI Native companies. You'll own our relationships with top venture firms and accelerators, design our startup program, and turn the earliest-stage builders into the production-scale customers of tomorrow.
Fireworks is trusted by AI Native companies like Cursor, Vercel, Harvey, and Genspark — many of which started building with us at seed or Series A. The next fast growth AI Native company is being founded right now, and the VCs backing it are deciding which platforms to recommend. This role makes sure Fireworks is the answer. It's a builder role for someone who knows the venture ecosystem from the inside, can earn the trust of partners and founders alike, and can translate that access into measurable pipeline, adoption, and revenue.
What You’ll Do
- Define and own Fireworks' startup and venture strategy, including target segments, programs, partner tiers, and goals for pipeline, activation, and revenue.
- Build and scale the Fireworks Startup Program - technical programming, go-to-market benefits, and graduation paths from self-serve to committed contracts.
- Build deep relationships with partners and platform teams at top-tier venture firms, accelerators, and incubators, making Fireworks their recommended platform for portfolio companies building with AI.
- Run portfolio-wide partnerships: perks and credits agreements, office hours, technical workshops, founder dinners, and AI infrastructure briefings for VC portfolios.
- Represent Fireworks across the startup ecosystem - demo days, accelerator cohorts, hackathons, panels, and founder communities.
- Track program economics and impact - credit spend, activation, conversion to paid, and revenue influenced - and report to GTM leadership.
- Bring signal from founders and investors back to product and leadership: which models, workloads, and features the next wave of companies needs.
What we’re looking for
- 5+ years in startup partnerships, venture capital, business development, or GTM roles at a cloud, developer, or AI infrastructure company.
- An established network across top-tier venture firms, accelerators, and founders.
- Proven track record of turning ecosystem relationships into measurable pipeline, product adoption, and revenue.
- Experience designing and running startup programs (credits, perks, technical enablement) with clear economics and accountability.
- Enough technical fluency to discuss open-source models, inference performance, fine-tuning, and cost trade-offs credibly with founders and CTOs.
- Comfort operating in a high-growth environment where the playbook is still being written - you build the plan, then run it.
- Strong cross-functional partnership skills across Sales, Marketing, Product, Developer Relations, and Finance.
- Genuine enthusiasm for founders and the early-stage builders.
Nice to Have
- Experience running a startup or VC program at a hyperscaler, AI lab, or developer platform.
- Prior experience as a VC investor, platform lead at a venture firm, or founder / early employee at a venture-backed startup.
- Existing relationships with AI-focused funds, accelerators, and founder communities.
- Background in a technical, product, or developer relations role.
What Success Looks Like
- Fireworks is the recommended AI inference and model platform across the portfolios of the top venture firms and accelerators.
- The startup program has clear economics: credits convert to paid usage, and graduates grow into committed contracts.
- A steady flow of high-potential startups reaches the AI Native sales team early, with measurable sourced and influenced pipeline.
- The next breakout AI Native companies are building on Fireworks before they're household names.
- Founder and investor feedback reliably reaches product and leadership and shapes what we build.
- A high-performing startup and VC team is in place and scaling with the business.
Location
San Mateo, CA / San Francisco, CA
Why Fireworks?
- Solve Hard Problems: Tackle challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure, from low-latency inference to scalable model serving.
- Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding-edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.
- Ownership & Impact: Join a fast-growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.
- Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world-class engineers and AI researchers who thrive on curiosity and innovation.
Fireworks AI is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all innovators.