Founding Partnerships Lead

NYC

TL;DR

Kombo (YC S22) is building the unified API for HR tech. We're looking for a strategic Partnerships Lead to unlock and expand our integration partnerships, manage vendor relationships, and help Kombo become the most trusted infrastructure layer in the space.

You’ll own our relationships with major vendors (e.g. SAP, Workday), drive growth through strategic partnerships, and shape our integration strategy alongside Product, Engineering, and Commercial.

Think of Kombo as the main hub that links everything in the HR Tech industry (over 300 vendors use our platform, and more than 10,000 employers have connected their systems through our infrastructure). Building partnerships and a proactive ecosystem are key drivers for maintaining our high growth trajectory.

About Kombo

Kombo offers a unified API that connects companies to 100+ HR, payroll, and recruiting systems through a single integration. Our customers save hundreds of hours of engineering work and can launch integrations in days instead of months.

Since YC in 2022, we've:

Grown from 0 to $6M+ ARR in 24 months
Scaled to process data for ~10% of Germany's workforce
Raised $9M+ from top investors including YC and 468 Capital
Built a team of 35+ Kombies (and counting!)

What You'll Be Working On

You’ll work at the intersection of commercial strategy, product development, and external vendor management.

Specifically, you will:

Initiate and drive end-to-end partnership cycles with key vendors like Workday, SAP, and Dayforce
Build strong relationships across the ecosystem, representing Kombo at conferences and partner meetings (0.5–1x/month travel expected)
Help unlock sandbox access, technical support, and faster API access for new and existing integrations
Shape our vendor-facing narrative and collaborate with marketing to position Kombo as the go-to integration partner
Collaborate cross-functionally with Product and Engineering to launch tightly integrated product lines (e.g., assessments, job boards)
Lay the foundation for a long-term partnerships function at Kombo and hire the first team members over time
Own the playbook for partner-led expansion opportunities

What You Will Bring

4+ years of experience in partnerships, business development, or platform strategy, ideally in a B2B SaaS company
- Experience with enterprise/complex partnerships, ideally with major vendors (Salesforce, Workday, Microsoft, etc.)
Proven experience managing complex partnerships with enterprise vendors (bonus: HRTech/RecTech ecosystem)
Strong operator mindset: structured, independent, and action-oriented
Technical literacy — you don’t need to be an engineer, but you should be comfortable talking APIs and integration workflows
Excellent communication skills and stakeholder management (internal + external)
Based in NYC (or willing to relocate) and available for frequent travel to key events

What It’s Like To Work at Kombo

Our culture is built around two pillars: high ambition (and thus high-performance) while still providing a fun and supportive environment.

Some tidbits that illustrate this:

Our growth puts🚀us into the ~top-5% of VC companies and we have the ambition to keep this pace.
We aspire to create an environment of few but very high-performing team members (similar to Netflix or Ashby).
Even though we are in-office, we have a strong writing culture and use long-form documents to make important (one-way) decisions because we believe we make better decisions this way
On average, we get together for a company-wide celebration ~once a week (larger feature release, big new closing, anniversary or birthday!)
Work extremely closely with our customers as they build their products and offerings on top of our API and infrastructure; thus, being customer-obsessed is our biggest assurance of future success

If working at a ‘SF-style company (but in Berlin)’ sounds appealing — we’re now building the same magic in NYC 😎 🚀