Full-Time
Director – Alliances and Partnerships
Updated on 3/13/2025
UpBound
51-200 employees
Cloud-based solutions for infrastructure management
No salary listed
Senior, Expert
Remote in USA
Candidates must be based in North America.
- 8+ years of experience in a strategic partnerships or alliances role, preferably within cloud, SaaS, or technology companies.
- Proven success in driving revenue and scaling partner ecosystems in high-growth, Series B or similar startup environments.
- Strong experience negotiating complex contracts and managing partner relationships.
- In-depth understanding of the cloud computing landscape, including public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and other related technologies.
- Familiarity with cloud management, optimization, and cost-saving solutions is a plus.
- Strong understanding of the partner ecosystem (ISVs, VARs, MSPs, SIs,etc.) and how to leverage these channels to drive sales growth.
- Strong negotiation and communication skills, with the ability to influence both internal stakeholders and external partners.
- Ability to think strategically and execute tactically.
- Exceptional organizational and project management skills.
- Proficiency with CRM tools (Salesforce, HubSpot) and partnership management platforms.
- Identify, negotiate, and build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with cloud providers, Strategic Alliances, ISVs (Independent Software Vendors), SIs (System Integrators), VARs (Value-Added Resellers), and other relevant partners in the cloud and technology ecosystems.
- Develop and manage a structured partner program that enhances our ability to scale and meet business objectives. This includes onboarding, enablement, joint sales and marketing efforts, and training for new partners.
- Develop and build the ecosystem around Upbound and Crossplane and ensuring more quality technology partnerships and integrations show up in the Marketplace.
- Work closely with sales teams to align partner-driven opportunities with our overall revenue goals. Provide sales enablement tools, resources, and go-to-market strategies that empower partners to sell our solution effectively.
- Define and execute the partnership strategy to ensure that it aligns with the company’s product roadmap and business objectives. Identify strategic partnerships that drive customer acquisition, upsell, and cross-sell opportunities.
- Drive the expansion of the partner ecosystem, identifying new partnership opportunities across the cloud industry, including SaaS platforms, managed service providers (MSPs), and consulting firms.
- Develop KPIs for partner success, and track and report on partnership performance regularly. Ensure that all partnerships are delivering a measurable ROI for both the company and our partners.
- Represent Upbound at industry events, partner conferences, and forums to elevate the company’s brand and thought leadership within the cloud space.
- Work closely with product, engineering, marketing, and customer success teams to ensure alignment between partnerships and overall company objectives.
- Any cloud native or open source experience is highly preferred.
Upbound provides cloud-based solutions designed to help businesses streamline their operations and manage their cloud infrastructure more effectively. Their services include managed control planes that allow platform teams to scale resources as needed, ensuring optimal performance. A key feature is the ability to auto-scale control planes to support platforms with over 1,000 Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs), which means resources can adjust automatically based on demand. Upbound also offers Upbound Spaces, enabling organizations to deploy managed control planes in their own environments, which is beneficial for compliance with data privacy regulations. Unlike many competitors, Upbound focuses on simplifying the management of various cloud service providers and tools through centralized control. The company's goal is to empower businesses to innovate rapidly while maintaining efficient infrastructure management, with a subscription-based model that generates recurring revenue.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series B
Total Funding
$67.1M
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
Founded
2017
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Increased adoption of Kubernetes boosts demand for Upbound's Crossplane solutions.
- Multi-cloud strategies create opportunities for Upbound's centralized control solutions.
- Rise of platform engineering increases need for Upbound's managed control planes.
What critics are saying
- Name confusion with rent-to-own company involved in a lawsuit poses reputational risk.
- Increased competition in cloud-native platforms may dilute Upbound's market share.
- Rapid technological advancements require continuous innovation, straining Upbound's resources.
What makes UpBound unique
- Upbound offers managed control planes powered by Crossplane, a unique cloud-native solution.
- The company provides auto-scaling for platforms with over 1,000 Custom Resource Definitions.
- Upbound Spaces allows deployment of managed control planes in private environments for data compliance.
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Benefits
Equity
Health care benefits
401k plan
Work from anywhere
Flexible hours & PTO
Home office stipend
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -2%1 year growth
↓ -4%2 year growth
↑ 0%Upbound, developer of AI-driven software designed for b2b sales development, raised $100,000 of venture funding.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has accused rent-to-own company Acima of tricking customers into high-cost financing agreements. The CFPB on Friday (July 26) sued Acima — owned by Upbound, formerly known as Rent-a-Center — alleging that the company disguised many of its credit agreements as leases to get around consumer protection laws. “Due to Acima’s deception and obstruction, many consumers did not understand they were agreeing to expensive markups, exorbitant finance charges, and having few ways to escape their contracts,” the bureau said in a news release
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has accused rent-to-own company Acima of tricking customers into high-cost financing agreements. The CFPB on Friday (July 26) sued Acima — owned by Upbound, formerly known as Rent-a-Center — alleging that the company disguised many of its credit agreements as leases to get around consumer protection laws. “Due to Acima’s deception and obstruction, many consumers did not understand they were agreeing to expensive markups, exorbitant finance charges, and having few ways to escape their contracts,” the bureau said in a news release
Upbound, the control plane company behind the popular open-source project Crossplane, has announced the newest release of Upbound available everywhere, with several enterprise features bringing faster time-to-value to companies building cloud native platforms.
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Upbound, the control plane company behind the popular open source project Crossplane, today announced the newest release of Upbound available everywhere, with several enterprise features bringing faster time-to-value to companies building cloud native platforms. This leap-forward release offers a unified managed Crossplane experience that’s available for customers anywhere–whether that’s Upbound’s multi-tenant SaaS or single-tenant on customers’ own infrastructure. Along with a global Console with several features for platform operators, automatic upgrades, and enterprise security, Upbound enables platform engineers to get started with control planes faster and more easily manage Crossplane at an enterprise scale.After a year of 3x sales growth with customers like Deutsche Kreditbank, Gameloft, Millennium bcp, Variphy and more, Upbound is poised to accelerate enterprise-ready Crossplane for platform engineering teams globally.“Companies building out Crossplane-based platforms at scale have to deal with issues like tenancy and isolation when managing resources across all their cloud accounts. The latest release of Upbound enables customers to rapidly adopt and scale Crossplane by adopting a multi-Crossplane architecture, automation, added security, and the peace of mind to view and manage it from one place,” said Jan Willies, platform architect, Accenture.“You build it, you manage it” has reached a tipping point where DevOps and platform teams run into a chaotic mess administering their internal developer platforms (IDPs) alone. Platform teams seek flexibility through common, cloud native tooling while maintaining necessary security and governance controls. The solution is fundamentally building their own unified platform using control planes akin to the cloud providers.Crossplane Reinvented for the Enterprise CloudWith Upbound, platform engineers create their own central cloud native platform