Director, Business Development - Frontier AI Partnerships

Qualcomm · Santa Clara · $232,000–$348,000 (stated in the posting)

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General Summary:

Qualcomm is seeking a Director of Business Development to support strategic relationships with frontier AI companies and develop cross-business-unit opportunities that advance Qualcomm’s leadership in on-device AI, mobile computing, and intelligent connected devices. This role will support overall account and partnership leads and will be responsible for identifying, shaping, and executing opportunities between Qualcomm and leading AI model and platform companies, with a particular focus on enabling next-generation AI experiences across Snapdragon-powered mobile devices and broader edge AI ecosystems.

The successful candidate will bring strategic account support, AI ecosystem fluency, mobile device expertise, and strong cross-functional influence. They will translate frontier AI companies’ model, product, and enterprise AI roadmaps into actionable Qualcomm opportunities across devices, silicon, software enablement, developer ecosystems, and joint go-to-market motions—while building trusted partner relationships and helping drive disciplined execution.

Key Responsibilities

• Support strategic account plans: Help develop and execute multi-year Qualcomm engagement strategies for priority frontier AI companies, including account priorities, executive engagement, opportunity pipelines, technical collaboration areas, and commercial objectives.
• Drive mobile-first AI opportunities: Identify and advance opportunities to bring frontier AI models and experiences to Snapdragon-based smartphones, PCs, XR devices, and other mobile form factors, with emphasis on on-device and hybrid AI, privacy-preserving inference, and differentiated user experiences.
• Coordinate cross-BU engagement: Serve as the connective tissue across Qualcomm business units, including Mobile, Compute, IoT, Automotive, Cloud/Data Center, and Software, ensuring frontier AI partnership opportunities are prioritized, staffed, and executed with clear ownership.
• Shape joint technical roadmaps: Partner with product management, engineering, AI research, software, and developer ecosystem teams to translate partners’ model requirements and product direction into Qualcomm platform requirements, optimization opportunities, and proof-of-concept plans.
• Build executive relationships: Establish and maintain senior-level relationships with frontier AI company leadership across product, partnerships, engineering, enterprise, and go-to-market teams, while coordinating Qualcomm executive sponsorship and engagement cadence.
• Develop commercial partnership models: Support business case development, deal structuring, negotiation preparation, and internal approvals for partnership models that may include technical collaboration, platform optimization, customer co-selling, developer enablement, ecosystem programs, and joint market development.
• Enable ecosystem leverage: Identify opportunities where frontier AI companies’ enterprise momentum, model adoption, and partner ecosystems can align with Qualcomm’s OEM, operator, enterprise, cloud, and developer relationships.
• Monitor AI market dynamics: Track developments in frontier models, enterprise AI adoption, AI agents, mobile AI assistants, cloud-to-edge inference, and competitor partnerships to inform Qualcomm’s strategic positioning across the frontier AI ecosystem.
• Drive disciplined execution: Maintain an account operating rhythm, including opportunity reviews, stakeholder updates, executive briefings, decision logs, action tracking, and measurable progress against quarterly and annual objectives.

Success Measures

• Creation and execution of clear frontier AI account and partnership strategies with measurable milestones.
• Identification and advancement of qualified cross-BU partnership opportunities, especially in mobile devices and on-device AI.
• Establishment of strong executive and working-level engagement across priority frontier AI companies’ product, engineering, and business teams.
• Delivery of technical proof points, pilots, or joint initiatives that demonstrate Qualcomm platform differentiation for frontier AI-enabled experiences.
• Improved internal alignment across Qualcomm business units on frontier AI partnership priorities, ownership, and investment decisions.
• Development of commercial pathways that create strategic value for Qualcomm, frontier AI partners, OEMs, developers, and end users.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of sales, business development, product development or related work experience.

OR

• Associate's degree and 10+ years of sales, business development, product development or related work experience.

OR

• High school Diploma or equivalent and 12+ years of sales, business development, product development or related work experience.

This is an office based position located in Santa Clara, CA and is expected to comply with the company's onsite work policy. This is a U.S. based position and is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, computer science, or related field; equivalent experience considered.
• MBA or advanced technical degree
• 12+ years of experience in business development, strategic partnerships, product strategy, corporate development, sales, or ecosystem development in the technology industry.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex strategic accounts or partnerships with senior executive stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of mobile devices, semiconductor platforms, AI software ecosystems, and OEM business models.
• Working knowledge of generative AI, large language models, AI agents, cloud-to-edge inference, and enterprise AI adoption patterns.
• Proven ability to support and drive cross-functional initiatives across product, engineering, sales, marketing, legal, finance, and executive teams.
• Experience developing business cases, partnership proposals, deal structures, and executive-level recommendations.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, executive presence, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to operate with ambiguity, create structure, and drive outcomes across organizations without direct authority.

• Experience working with AI model providers, cloud platforms, mobile OEMs, operating system providers, or developer ecosystem partners.
• Familiarity with Snapdragon platforms, mobile SoCs, NPUs, AI software stacks, and model optimization techniques.
• Experience structuring partnerships involving joint technology development, co-marketing, platform enablement, or customer co-selling.
• Strong network across AI, mobile, cloud, or consumer device ecosystems.

Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail disability-accomodations@qualcomm.com or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries).

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EEO Employer: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or any other protected classification.

Qualcomm expects its employees to abide by all applicable policies and procedures, including but not limited to security and other requirements regarding protection of Company confidential information and other confidential and/or proprietary information, to the extent those requirements are permissible under applicable law.

Pay range and Other Compensation & Benefits:

The above pay scale reflects the broad, minimum to maximum, pay scale for this job code for the location for which it has been posted. Even more importantly, please note that salary is only one component of total compensation at Qualcomm.  We also offer a competitive annual discretionary bonus program and opportunity for annual RSU grants (employees on sales-incentive plans are not eligible for our annual bonus).  In addition, our highly competitive benefits package is designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that Qualcomm has to offer – and you can review more details about our US benefits at this link.

If you would like more information about this role, please contact Qualcomm Careers.

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