AI Partnerships Lead

About this role

We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era.

When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done.

Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma.

We’re building an AI scientist for our customers. We can’t do that if we haven’t built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it's core to how we work, and we're committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day-to-day. As part of our interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.

ROLE OVERVIEW

Benchling is the R&D Cloud for life sciences. Our platform powers scientific work at thousands of academic labs and biopharma companies, and we sit at the intersection of AI and biology as both accelerate. We are looking for an AI Partnerships Lead to own Benchling’s most important AI relationships and drive the commercial partnerships that define our role in the AI ecosystem.

This is a high-ownership, client-facing role. You will lead partnerships with model labs, scientific AI companies, and adjacent infrastructure partners; structure and close deals spanning data licensing, product integrations, and co-development arrangements; and build the playbook for how Benchling engages the AI ecosystem end-to-end. The role spans both directions of the data economy: helping partners access Benchling's scientific data at scale, and sourcing external data and models that power Benchling's own AI products. You will work closely with Product, Legal, Finance, and GTM internally, and represent Benchling to sophisticated external technical stakeholders.

RESPONSIBILITIES

- Partner Ownership: Own the end-to-end relationship with Benchling's most important AI partners across frontier model labs, scientific model providers, and infrastructure partners

- Data Licensing: Structure commercial arrangements across the data ecosystem in close partnership with Benchling's technical AI team, sourcing the external data and models they need and licensing Benchling's data and platform capabilities to external partners

- Broader Deal Execution: Structure, negotiate, and close additional commercial deals across product integrations, co-marketing, and co-development. Work across Legal, Finance, Product, and GTM to turn partnership commitments into product and commercial reality

- Playbook Design: Build a repeatable playbook for how Benchling engages the AI ecosystem: pipeline, pricing, deal structures, and success metrics

- Ecosystem Sourcing: Source, diligence, and place clear bets on the next generation of AI/ML companies, from stealth-stage startups to public infrastructure players, and shape which ones become Benchling partners

- Industry Presence: Represent Benchling at events, in the field, and in front of senior executives at every partner you own

QUALIFICATIONS 

- 4+ years combined experience across partnerships, business development, enterprise sales, corporate development, consulting, investment banking, venture capital, life sciences, tech, or startups

- Bias for action and comfort with ambiguity; energized by building the playbook while running live deals

- Track record of managing senior external relationships and engaging credibly at the executive level, including with CEOs, CFOs, and technical leadership

- Strong knowledge of AI/ML and the ability to translate between research and commercial audiences; a technical background is not required, but you should be comfortable in substantive conversations with researchers, engineers, and product teams

- Comfort operating across the full deal lifecycle: sourcing and qualification, discovery, negotiation, contracting alongside Legal, and post-signature delivery

- Strong written communication, with the ability to translate complex and uncertain ideas into clear, concise, and decisive recommendations

- Demonstrated engagement and relationships across the AI ecosystem is a plus

- Deep curiosity about how AI is reshaping R&D; prior work experience in life sciences or a degree in a scientific discipline (biology, chemistry, bioengineering, or similar) is a plus

HOW WE WORK

Employees are expected to be on-site in San Francisco 5 days per week.

#LI-Hybrid

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Benchling welcomes everyone.

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.

We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

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