Business Development Lead – Snowflake

Snowflake

Business Development Lead for AI-native startups at Snowflake. Responsible for driving engagement, creating partnerships, and ensuring growth with targeted startups.

Posted 5/9/2026full-timeMenlo Park • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $126,000 - $181,700 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Cloud

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Driving Engagement and Introductions to New, High-Priority AI-Native Startups:
Network and Personal Introductions: Leverage existing networks and cultivate new relationships to secure introductions to founders of AI-native startups.
Events and Networking: Actively participate in industry events, conferences, and networking opportunities to identify and engage with promising startups.
Event Sponsorship: Identify and recommend key events for sponsorship to enhance Snowflake's visibility and generate leads within the AI startup community.
Content Production: Contribute to the creation and dissemination of valuable content, such as workshops and PR initiatives, to attract and inform AI startups about Snowflake's offerings.
Categorizing and Maintaining a High-Priority Startup List:
Tiered Prioritization: Develop and maintain a meticulously categorized list of high-priority startups, classifying them into Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 based on strategic importance, growth potential, and alignment with Snowflake's objectives.
Market Intelligence: Continuously monitor the venture funding landscape and key product trends within the AI startup ecosystem to inform and refine startup prioritization.
Cross-functional Alignment: Collaborate with internal teams (Sales, Marketing, Product, AI Partnerships, Venture) to ensure a unified approach to outreach and engagement with prioritized startups.
Driving Growth and Results from Tier 1 and Tier 2 Startups:
Focused Engagement: Allocate time strategically, dedicating approximately 60% of efforts to Tier 1 startups, 20% to Tier 2 startups, and 20% to other high-potential opportunities.
Executive Leadership Introductions: Facilitate introductions between Tier 1 startup founders and Snowflake's Executive Leadership Team (ELT) to foster deeper relationships and demonstrate Snowflake's commitment.
GTM Support: Provide comprehensive go-to-market (GTM) support, leveraging Snowflake's enterprise customer base to create a prize target for AI startups' GTM efforts.
Product-Led Growth (PLG) Motion: Support the PLG motion by promoting Cortex REST APIs to attract "off Snowflake" startups and create a path for them to move additional data and workloads onto Snowflake.
Partnership Development: Work to transform relationships with Foundation Model (FM) providers from transactional sales channels into genuine product partnerships, ensuring that FM partners recognize the value of AI startups consuming tokens via Cortex.
Field Enablement: Collaborate with sales and solutions engineering teams to ensure they are trained on how to effectively sell FM access and token capacity, addressing unique sales cycles and consumption models preferred by startups.
Measuring and Reporting on Growth and Effectiveness:
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): Define, track, and report on critical metrics to measure the effectiveness of engagement with Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners. These OKRs will include:
New Startups’ spending on Snowflake (over $5K ARR)
Capacity commits
Growth in fundraising
Percentage of newly funded, Tier 0/Tier 1 backed startups on Snowflake
Percentage of startups in a specific venture fund or accelerator cohort on Snowflake
Regular Reporting: Provide regular and insightful reports to management on the progress and impact of startup engagements, highlighting successes, challenges, and areas for improvement.
Cross-functional Collaboration: Work with Finance and Sales Operations to ensure accurate tracking of inference deals and to align on commission structures for expanded Snowflake services.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Proven experience in business development, partnerships, or a similar role within the AI/ML or cloud technology sector, with a focus on startups.
Deep understanding of the AI startup ecosystem, venture funding trends, and key product trends.
Strong network within the startup and venture capital communities.
Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
Ability to work strategically and tactically in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
Demonstrated ability to drive measurable results and influence cross-functional teams.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Not specified in the provided text

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Hard Skills & Tools

business developmentpartnershipsmarket intelligencego-to-market (GTM) supportproduct-led growth (PLG) motionCortex REST APIsobjectives and key results (OKRs)reportingsales enablementdata analysis

Soft Skills

communication skillspresentation skillsinterpersonal skillsstrategic thinkingtactical executionrelationship buildingcollaborationinfluenceadaptabilityproblem-solving