Director of Business Development

About the role

Nothing is building the next generation of consumer technology — AI-native devices with a design-led, challenger brand. As we scale in North America, our most important growth lever is a small number of high-leverage strategic technology partnerships that shape our product, our economics, and our position in the AI-device ecosystem.

Responsibilities

• Define Nothing's technology partnership strategy with the executive team; identify where partnerships beat build-or-buy
• Originate relationships outbound with AI labs, Google/Android, and Qualcomm
• Structure multi-year, platform-level agreements: model access, integration, exclusivity, warrants/equity where relevant, silicon pricing and roadmap commitments
• Negotiate and close with C-suite counterparts, owning commercial, legal, and finance terms end-to-end
• Land deals that change product economics — chipset cost structures, AI inference costs, revenue-share and services agreements
• Work as a player-coach across product, engineering, marketing, and finance so partnerships are built into roadmaps, not bolted on
• Make your own materials; operate with no playbook in a fast-scaling, ambiguous environment

Requirements

• 8+ years of enterprise / platform business development with named, multi-year strategic deals — not distribution, licensing, reseller, or co-marketing arrangements
• Direct experience negotiating with at least one of: frontier/major AI labs, Google/Android platform teams, or major silicon vendors (Qualcomm, MediaTek, or similar)
• Proven outbound origination — you've created partnerships from cold, ideally from a challenger or lesser-known company where the brand didn't open the door for you
• C-suite deal-making at scale: demonstrated large-deal history, with ownership of commercial and legal terms
• Current, active focus on the North American market
• Deep fluency in the consumer-electronics / device landscape: silicon, OS, AI stack, and how they connect to device economics
• Strong plus: Deals with warrant/equity or non-standard commercial structures, On-device AI or model-integration deal experience, 0-to-1 builder: founder, early-team, or built a BD function from scratch, Genuine affinity for Nothing's brand and design-led, culture-forward mission