Head of Partnerships

About Loft Labs

We are a venture-backed tech startup striving to be the leading force in enabling platform engineers. We raised +$30M from top tier VCs such as Khosla Ventures (first investor in OpenAI, GitLab, Stripe, Doordash) and are in a hyper-growth phase looking for motivated people to complement our team. Our headquarters are in San Francisco (Salesforce Tower) but our team is distributed around the globe and we have a remote-first work culture.

We're the company behind vCluster, an open-source technology for virtualizing Kubernetes (+10k GitHub stars). Open source is part of our DNA.

The adoption of our commercial product based on vCluster has grown extremely fast (multi-million dollar revenue) and our customer base includes some of the biggest companies in the world including 6 Global Fortune 500 companies as well as some of the fastest-growing tech unicorns.

Responsibilities

• Lead Strategic Partnerships: Identify, initiate, and manage partnerships with data center infrastructure vendors (GPUs, hardware, networking, storage), cloud providers, Kubernetes-focused startups, and major CNCF projects to drive product adoption and ecosystem growth.

• Build Joint Value Propositions: Co-design technical integrations, reference architectures, solution bundles, or go-to-market campaigns that demonstrate vCluster's value in real-world use cases.

• Own Relationship Development: From first outreach to signed OEM agreements including long-term growth of the relationship and everything that contributes to mutual success—marketing, sales, engineering, and executive touchpoints included.

• Drive Awareness Through Collaboration: Collaborate with partners on blog posts, webinars, case studies, conference talks, and joint events to showcase what we’re doing together.

• Work Cross-Functionally: Partner with Product to explore technical integrations, with Marketing to amplify joint efforts, and with Sales to unlock channel or co-selling opportunities.

• Stay Close to the Ecosystem: You’ll be deeply plugged into what’s happening in the Kubernetes/CNCF/Infrastructure space, always looking for the next breakout tool, emerging trend, or commercial synergy.

Requirements

• Know the Kubernetes Ecosystem Cold: You’ve worked in or with cloud-native companies, understand the CNCF landscape, and can speak credibly about infrastructure, workloads, and enterprise platforms.

• Understand Both Tech and Business: You can discuss NVIDIA GPUs, OpenStack integrations, or HyperShift vs vCluster one minute, and negotiate partner margins or BD strategy the next.

• Have Rolled Up Your Sleeves Before: You’ve built or launched a successful partner program, negotiated strategic deals, or led integrations from scratch—not just managed them.

• Are a Builder and Operator: You don’t wait for playbooks—you write them. You turn “we should partner with X” into “we’ve shipped a joint solution with X and presented it at KubeCon.”

• Can Navigate Startups and Giants: You’re as comfortable working with early-stage founders as you are negotiating terms with major hardware giants.

Bonus Points

• Existing relationships with Kubernetes ecosystem leaders at companies like NVIDIA, Dell, AWS, Azure, as well as any major OSS startup companies in the CNCF space

• Experience in channel/solution sales, tech alliances, or field/partner marketing

• Background in infrastructure tools, platform engineering, and open source business models preferred

Benefits

We offer the following benefits:

• Competitive Salary: We offer a competitive compensation package, including equity.

• Platinum-Level Insurance: Health, dental, vision, and life Insurance, including plans for you and eligible dependents (benefits vary depending on country).

• Flexible Working Schedule:  You have a doctor’s appointment or need to head to the supermarket to get groceries at 2pm? We won’t have an issue with that. To us, results matter more than clocking in and out at the same time e