Director of Business Strategy & Development

Great Sky is a technology startup based with a mission to rebuild AI from first principles. We are pursuing neuroscience-inspired hardware and algorithms that overcome the greatest challenges in scaling AI systems.

Great Sky's CEO is the face of the company and the primary relationship-holder with customers, partners, and investors. This role exists to make those relationships count.

We're looking for a Director of Business Strategy & Development— a senior operator who understands the semiconductor and AI infrastructure landscape deeply, has the instincts to sequence a go-to-market strategy for an early stage hardware company, and can help the CEO walk into every room with the right narrative, the right materials, and the right context.

This is a founder-led sales environment. Your job is to make our CEO as effective as possible: shaping how Great Sky is positioned in the market, identifying the right relationships to build, preparing leadership for high-stakes conversations, and supporting the investor and partner narrative as we grow.

This is a full-time role based in Palo Alto, CA or Boulder, CO, with travel as well as flexibility for some remote work.

Commercial strategy and go-to-market

• Develop and own Great Sky's commercial strategy: which markets to enter, in what sequence, and why

• Build and maintain a prioritized target list of customers and partners across hyperscalers, AI infrastructure companies, cloud-access startups, government entities (e.g., DOE, DOD), fusion, and other strategic commercial accounts

• Identify the right contacts within target organizations and find the best path to a conversation, leveraging Great Sky's investor and advisor network for warm introductions

• Ensure the sequencing of relationships is right: knowing when to engage, who should be in the room, and how to advance a partnership without moving too fast or too slow

• Prepare the CEO for customer and partner meetings with research, context, talking points, materials, and own follow-up to keep momentum going

Investor and stakeholder narrative

• Support the investor narrative and pitch materials: helping communicate Great Sky's commercial thesis, market opportunity, and progress to existing and prospective investors, commercial partners, and strategic stakeholders

• Serve as a thought partner to the CEO on how Great Sky is positioned relative to the AI infrastructure landscape: what we say, to whom, and when

Partnerships and deals

• Support the structuring and negotiation of commercial partnerships, working alongside legal counsel, finance, and technical teams

• Serve as the point person for Joint Development Agreements and other partnership structures once signed by ensuring commitments are tracked and followed through

• Help set up the operational infrastructure for new partnerships so they start on the right foot

Market intelligence

• Stay on top of the competitive landscape, emerging trends, and shifts in the market for AI hardware and related technologies

• Develop a working understanding of the size and shape of the markets Great Sky is pursuing, including relevant applications for the government, startups, and hyperscalers

• Identify where customer needs are evolving and how Great Sky's technology maps to those needs, now and over time

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, or a related field. Master's degree or equivalent experience preferred.

• 7+ years of experience in business development, sales, partnerships, or a related commercial role, at a deep tech, hardware, or government-facing company

• Deep familiarity with the AI infrastructure landscape — you understand the hyperscaler compute buildout, where GPU-centric architectures are hitting limits, who the key buyers and builders are, and where novel hardware approaches have a credible path to adoption

• Demonstrated experience building and managing a commercial pipeline from scratch, including identifying targets, initiating outreach, and moving relationships through a long sales cycle

• Ability to quickly understand customer requirements, navigate technical product lines, and independently drive early pipeline development

• Proven ability to project manage complex, multi-stakeholder processes with hard deadlines, including coordinating across technical and non-technical contributors

• Experience navigating and leveraging investor and stakeholder networks to open doors and generate warm introductions

• Ability to translate deeply technical work into clear, compelling narratives for non-technical audiences including customers, investors, and government stakeholders

• Strong communication and relationship-building capabilities across internal and external stakeholders

• Comfortable operating with high ambiguity and long feedback loops, where deals and funding cycles play out over months or years

• Experience working closely with a founder or CEO as a commercial support function, with a low-ego approach to letting leadership lead

• Existing relationships within hyperscaler AI infrastructure, AI research, or AI compute procurement teams

• Understanding of the AI inference market — workloads, latency and power constraints, and where the economics of current hardware create openings for novel architectures

• Experience with CRM tools or pipeline management systems

• Prior experience at a Series A or Series B deep tech company

• Existing relationships within DoE, DoD, national labs, or hyperscaler procurement teams

• Familiarity with government contracting vehicles including SBIRs, STTRs, OTAs, and BAAs, and an understanding of how federal procurement processes work

• Meaningful equity ownership in an early-stage deep tech company

• Employer-matched 401(k)

• Health, dental, vision, and life insurance

• Flexible PTO

• Support for ongoing learning, conference attendance, and skill development

Our culture is onsite by default (we're founded by scientists who are used to working in the lab), with flexibility for hybrid arrangements. For the right person and role, we're open to filling roles remotely