Head of Alliances and Partnerships (REMOTE) at UpBound

San Francisco, California, United States

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Not SpecifiedCompensation

Expert & Leadership (9+ years)Experience Level

Full TimeJob Type

UnknownVisa

Technology, Cloud InfrastructureIndustries

Requirements

Accomplished and highly strategic experience in partnerships and alliances
Expertise at the intersection of open source ecosystem development and commercial go-to-market execution
Ability to build and scale relationships to expand Crossplane adoption and drive commercial success for Upbound’s enterprise platform
Deep collaboration skills across engineering, product, marketing, and sales teams
Thrives in environments combining open source credibility and business impact
Capable of earning trust in developer ecosystems, influencing technical direction, and turning ecosystem momentum into measurable growth
Comfortable operating across technical and commercial contexts, fluent with maintainers and hyperscaler executives
Curiosity about AI and emerging infrastructure models
Views partnerships as systems for long-term category creation

Responsibilities

Build strategic relationships within the Crossplane ecosystem (contributors, maintainers, adjacent projects) to expand adoption and integration momentum
Collaborate with open-source foundations and community leaders to strengthen the broader control plane and platform engineering ecosystem
Support co-marketing, education, and joint initiatives celebrating community success and reinforcing Upbound’s open source leadership
Partner with Developer Relations and Product teams for two-way collaboration between community innovation and enterprise needs
Identify, negotiate, and grow high-impact partnerships with hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP), ISVs, and SIs
Develop joint GTM strategies integrating Crossplane and Upbound into partner ecosystems, marketplaces, and managed services
Collaborate on technical integrations expanding Crossplane’s reach while reinforcing Upbound’s commercial differentiation
Act as a bridge between open-source innovation, partner value creation, and enterprise adoption
Architect and execute partner-led GTM motions: co-selling, account mapping, co-marketing, sales enablement, joint value propositions
Work with marketing on partner case studies, technical stories, and ecosystem campaigns highlighting real-world outcomes
Translate developer/community adoption signals into commercial opportunities with measurable pipeline impact
Leverage GTM and partner analytics tools to optimize engagement, track influence, and refine strategies
Design and operationalize a scalable partner program: onboarding, enablement, incentives, performance tracking
Define partner tiers, certification paths, and engagement models for open-source collaborators and commercial partners
Establish KPIs for ecosystem health, engagement, and partner-driven revenue
Collaborate with product and engineering leadership to align partnerships with roadmap priorities and strategic initiatives
Advocate for integration opportunities and feedback from open-source and commercial ecosystems
Drive alignment between Crossplane’s community direction and Upbound’s enterprise strategy for synergy

Skills

Key technologies and capabilities for this role

PartnershipsAlliancesOpen SourceCrossplaneEcosystem DevelopmentGo-to-MarketCloud ProvidersISVsSystem IntegratorsCo-MarketingCommunity Engagement

Questions & Answers

Common questions about this position

Is this Head of Alliances and Partnerships role remote?

Yes, this is a fully remote position.

What is the salary or compensation for this role?

This information is not specified in the job description.

What key skills are needed for the Head of Partnerships role?

The role requires strategic relationship building in open source ecosystems, experience negotiating high-impact partnerships with hyperscalers, ISVs, and SIs, and expertise in partner GTM execution including co-selling and joint strategies.

What is the company culture like at Upbound?

Upbound fosters a collaborative environment where teams across engineering, product, marketing, and sales work together on open source ecosystem development and commercial strategies, valuing open source credibility, business impact, and long-term category creation through partnerships.

What makes a strong candidate for this Head of Partnerships position?

Strong candidates are highly strategic individual contributors who excel at building open source relationships, influencing technical direction, negotiating with hyperscaler executives, and driving measurable commercial growth through ecosystem partnerships.

UpBound

Cloud-based solutions for infrastructure management

About UpBound

Upbound provides cloud-based solutions designed to help businesses streamline their operations and manage their cloud infrastructure more effectively. Their services include managed control planes that allow platform teams to scale resources as needed, ensuring optimal performance. A key feature is the ability to auto-scale control planes to support platforms with over 1,000 Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), which means resources can adjust automatically based on demand. Upbound also offers Upbound Spaces, enabling organizations to deploy managed control planes in their own environments, which is beneficial for compliance with data privacy regulations. Unlike many competitors, Upbound focuses on simplifying the management of various cloud service providers and tools through centralized control. The company's goal is to empower businesses to innovate rapidly while maintaining efficient infrastructure management, with a subscription-based model that generates recurring revenue.

Seattle, WashingtonHeadquarters

2017Year Founded

$67.1MTotal Funding

SERIES_BCompany Stage

Enterprise Software, CybersecurityIndustries

51-200Employees

Benefits

Equity

Health care benefits

401k plan

Work from anywhere

Flexible hours & PTO

Home office stipend

Risks

Name confusion with rent-to-own company involved in a lawsuit poses reputational risk.

Increased competition in cloud-native platforms may dilute Upbound's market share.

Rapid technological advancements require continuous innovation, straining Upbound's resources.

Differentiation

Upbound offers managed control planes powered by Crossplane, a unique cloud-native solution.

The company provides auto-scaling for platforms with over 1,000 Custom Resource Definitions.

Upbound Spaces allows deployment of managed control planes in private environments for data compliance.

Upsides

Increased adoption of Kubernetes boosts demand for Upbound's Crossplane solutions.

Multi-cloud strategies create opportunities for Upbound's centralized control solutions.

Rise of platform engineering increases need for Upbound's managed control planes.

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