Director of Partnerships
Buzz Solutions· startup· Utilities· Oct 12, 2026 · 16d ago
Remote
Hybrid
Full-time
Director
$200K–$250K est.
Job description
About Buzz Solutions Buzz Solutions builds PowerAI, a computer vision platform that finds hardware defects in utility transmission and distribution infrastructure and delivers those findings straight into the systems where utilities actually make asset decisions. Our customers include Dominion, AEP, NYPA, and Ameren. We integrate today with Esri's ArcGIS and IBM Maximo, and we work alongside capture partners such as Skydio. We are at the stage where the direct sales motion works and the next order of magnitude has to come from somewhere else. That is what this role is for. The role Design and execute our go-to-market partner strategy and execution — and own the revenue it generates. Over the next 18–24 months that means building a repeatable partner motion in the United States, opening Canada as our first international market, and scoping the markets that follow. You will define our partnership categories (and priorities), evaluate partners in each of those categories, sign them, make them technically viable, enable partner sellers and delivery teams to carry Buzz without our hand on their shoulder, and be accountable for the pipeline and closed ARR that results. This is deliberately a hybrid charter. It requires someone who can sit in a commercial negotiation in the morning, walk an integration architecture with a partner's solutions team in the afternoon, and run a certification workshop for that partner's field engineers the following week. Candidates who can only do one or two of those three will not succeed here. You will be an individual contributor at hire, with an expected path to building a partner organization in year two.
Responsibilities
Pipeline and revenue through partnership
You carry a partner-sourced and partner-influenced number. This is not a support function that hands leads to account executives and reports on activity. You will work opportunities alongside our direct sellers and alongside partner sellers, from first qualification through close, and you own the forecast for that motion. You will also define the rules of engagement, deal registration, and margin structure that keep the channel from colliding with direct sales and then enforce them.
Technical integration and joint solutions design
You own the commercial and technical shape of how PowerAI plugs into a partner's world and how it drives joint value. First order of business: turn our existing Esri integration from a working piece of engineering into a formal, listed, jointly sold alliance, then do the same for Maximo, then prioritize what follows against real pipeline rather than a wish list. You'll also own the hyperscaler track — marketplace transactability and co-sell — which is as much a commercial unlock as a technical one. Throughout, you build the reference architectures and joint solution briefs that let a partner's pre-sales team position us credibly without us in the room. You are not expected to write production code. You are expected to hold your own in a conversation about API orchestration, data flow, GIS conflation, and where a given integration will break at enterprise scale — and to know when to pull Product and Engineering into the conversation.
Partner enablement and certification
A signed agreement is not a partnership. You'll build the layer that turns signatures into revenue: the sales narrative and objection handling a partner rep can deliver without us, the business case and ROI tooling they need to get a utility's capital committee to yes, the demo certification that lets them run their own discovery, and the technical curriculum that lets their engineers implement and support PowerAI deployments. Over time this becomes a tiered certification program and the basis for a services multiplier on every dollar of software we sell
International market entry
You own how Buzz goes international and in what order — the subject of its own section below. The short version: expansion is partner-led by design, and the sequencing judgment is as much a part of this role as the partnerships themselves.
Qualifications
Built a partner ecosystem from near zero at an early-stage or scaling B2B software company — not inherited and grown a mature program. You've done the unglamorous first version: the first agreement template, the first rules of engagement, the first certification deck.
Carried and hit a number through partners . You can walk through specific partner-sourced pipeline and closed revenue you were personally accountable for, how it was measured, and the quarters you missed as well as the ones you made.
Sold into slow, regulated, procurement-heavy enterprises. Utilities specifically is a strong advantage; adjacent regulated infrastructure — energy, telecom, transportation, public sector — translates. A career selling exclusively to fast-moving commercial buyers does not.
Technical fluency sufficient to be credible without an engineer in the room. You can explain how data moves between a capture provider, our platform, and a customer's GIS and EAM; you can spot where an integration will fail at enterprise scale; you know the difference between a demo integration and a supportable one.
Built sales and technical enablement material yourself — partner pitch narratives, ROI models, demo certification, delivery curriculum. Written, not commissioned.
Negotiated real partner commercial terms — referral, resell, white-label, and OEM structures, margin and discount frameworks, deal registration, data rights, and liability — in partnership with legal.
Comfortable as an individual contributor in an ambiguous, resource-constrained environment. For the first year, you are the partner organization
Buzz Solutions does not provide sponsorship for work authorization in the United States at this time.
Buzz Solutions is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected classification as defined by law.
Application prep
Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.
Keywords to mirror
goapi
- Platform
- greenhouse
- Effort
- quick
Benefits
Benefits detected in the listing.
Vision