Senior Business Development Manager (Remote within USA or Canada)
- Role
- Business Development
- Experience
- Senior
- Employment
- Full-time
- Company size
- Mid-size
Open to US, CA only. Set where you work from to check your eligibility.
No BS summary
Senior Business Development / Partnerships lead with 10+ years experience to source, structure and scale complex product partnerships for consumer-facing products (search, Duck.ai, Privacy Pro). Must be located in the US or Canada and able to manage cross-functional technical deals including product and legal/finance work.
Core skills
Required skills
Optional skills
WHO WE ARE
Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online.com/pro. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!
YOUR TEAM AND ROLE
As a Senior Business Development Manager on the Partnerships team, you’ll lead DuckDuckGo’s most complex Product partnerships and drive strategy — sourcing, negotiating, and scaling high-impact deals with partners that can materially enhance our entire portfolio of products (search, Duck.ai, Privacy Pro subscriptions, etc) and work on related projects. Many of these partnerships will be the first-of-their-kind where you will have to create playbooks from 0-to-1 — you'll be structuring deals where the product, economics, and strategic value need to be figured out together, and you’ll be working cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Finance to make them real.
You'll manage a portfolio of competing and complementary partner relationships, forging partnerships with leading organizations while, in the case of AI, navigating the strategic tradeoffs of a market where pricing, capabilities, and competitive dynamics shift quarterly. Your work will directly shape how our products evolve, including Duck.ai and Assist, and reach millions of users.
What Projects Might Look Like
- Figuring out further partnerships that could enhance our Duck.ai and Search Assist offerings
- Identifying opportunities for Partnerships to drive product enhancement and user engagement/retention.
- Creating new distribution channels to help grow our AI related services
ABOUT YOU
- 10+ years of Business Development, Partnerships, or Strategic Partnerships experience.
- 2+ years of cross-functional leadership on partnership projects and teams, including legal and engineering.
- Experience with consumer internet or user-facing software business with an understanding of the AI/LLM ecosystem and how AI capabilities are being integrated into consumer products.
- Significant experience leading complex product partnerships end-to-end — from identifying the opportunity through deal close and beyond. These should be partnerships where you've created something new together and navigated real product and technical complexity, not sales deals or API licensing.
- Self-sufficiency on the commercial details — you don’t wait for someone else to draft terms, build financial models, or pressure-test deal structures — you can handle these details on your own while partnering with Legal and Finance.
- Experience managing a portfolio of complex strategic partner relationships and an understanding of the tradeoffs that come with balancing competing and complementary providers.
- You build trust quickly with internal teams, partners, and stakeholders you've never worked with before. You're collaborative by default and decisive when it counts.
- Located in US or Canada.
COMPENSATION
$200,267 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.
Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to team members based in the United States. This program does not extend to team members located in other countries, such as Canada or the UK.
HIRING PROCESS
Hiring works best when it's a two-way street.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.
We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send an email to careers@duckduckgo.com to let us know the nature of your request.
PLEASE NOTE THAT:
- You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing
- Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.
- While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.
- A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.
- By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT: USE OF AI IN HIRING PROCESS
As part of our commitment to enhancing our recruitment process, we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects, including those tools integrated into our recruitment vendor platforms. We use AI to flag potentially fraudulent applications, analyze and summarize applicants’ experience, interviews, and project performance, and help streamline our selection process.
Key Principles:
- Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.
- Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us as at careers@duckduckgo.com. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!
What you'll do
- Lead DuckDuckGo’s most complex Product partnerships and drive strategy — sourcing, negotiating, and scaling high-impact deals
- Create 0-to-1 playbooks for first-of-their-kind partnerships where product, economics, and strategic value are defined together
- Work cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Finance to implement partnerships
- Manage a portfolio of competing and complementary partner relationships
- Identify opportunities to enhance Duck.ai and Search Assist through partnerships
- Create new distribution channels to grow AI-related services
What they require
- 10+ years of Business Development, Partnerships, or Strategic Partnerships experience.
- 2+ years of cross-functional leadership on partnership projects and teams, including legal and engineering.
- Experience with consumer internet or user-facing software business with an understanding of the AI/LLM ecosystem and how AI capabilities are being integrated into consumer products.
- Significant experience leading complex product partnerships end-to-end — from identifying the opportunity through deal close and beyond (not sales deals or API licensing).
- Self-sufficiency on the commercial details — able to draft terms, build financial models, and pressure-test deal structures while partnering with Legal and Finance.
- Experience managing a portfolio of complex strategic partner relationships and understanding tradeoffs between competing and complementary providers.
- Located in US or Canada.
- Successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.
Benefits
- Offers Equity (stock options)
- Company-sponsored health benefits (eligibility limited to team members in the United States)
- Paid parental leave (described in Team Member Support Guide)
- Office setup and co-working allowances (described in Team Member Support Guide)
- Travel twice a year for all-hands and team retreat
- Remote-first culture and flexible work arrangement, no core hours
DuckDuckGo is an online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online, with products including browsers, search engine, and Privacy Pro.