Cognition

Partner Director - Consulting Firms (USA) at Cognition (San Francisco, CA / Austin, TX / New York, NY)

Cognition· San Francisco, CA / Austin, TX / New York, NY·

Role details

Employment
Full-Time

Cognition at a glance

Applied AI lab behind Devin, the autonomous AI software engineer, and the Windsurf IDE.

Cognition is an applied AI lab building autonomous software engineering agents. Its flagship, Devin, plans, writes, tests, and ships production code inside a customer's own codebase and tooling. After acquiring Windsurf in 2025, it also runs the Windsurf AI-native IDE as a synchronous complement to Devin's async agent work.

$1.5B+ raised · latest: Series D · $1B+ · $26B valuation · May 2026 · backed by Lux Capital, General Catalyst, 8VC, Founders Fund

Job description

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents. We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer. Our team is extremely talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro. Building Devin is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us. We're looking for a talented Partner Director to join us on our mission to build the future of software engineering with focus on building our partnerships with the largest Consulting Firms in the world — McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, Kearney, and their peers.

ABOUT US

Cognition is the team behind Devin, the world's first AI software engineer. Today, the two primary forms of AI coding tools are IDEs and agents. Engineers naturally want both: the IDE for when you want to make each decision yourself, with AI-assisted speedups, and agents to delegate complete tasks asynchronously. Our product suite is uniquely capable of tackling the pair. Our maniacal focus on serving the world's most innovative companies and largest enterprises has led Gartner to name us a "Leader" in the Magic Quadrant. Customers like Goldman Sachs, Mercedes Benz, NuBank, Ramp, Citi, Dell, Cisco, Palantir, and ServiceNow trust us to help them transform their businesses.

HIGHLIGHTS

WHAT YOU'LL DO

  • As Consulting Partnerships Director, you will be responsible for building Cognition's strategy consulting partner ecosystem from the ground up — sourcing, recruiting, enabling, and activating firms like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Kearney to drive meaningful revenue for Cognition's platform.
  • You will build these partnerships from the ground up and turn them into partner-initiated business. This is not a maintenance role but rather a hunter/farmer role. You will define the strategy, build the program, support deals, and help close new business alongside our consulting partners.
  • You'll build relationships across each firm, from senior partners to their tech and AI practices (e.g., McKinsey Digital/QuantumBlack, BCG X, Bain Vector), and develop joint offerings that embed Devin into their client transformation work, so the firms proactively bring Devin into the enterprises they advise.
  • You'll work closely with sales, but also engineering, product, and marketing to build a high-leverage partner engine that accelerates Cognition's growth and expands Devin's reach into the world's most ambitious technology organizations.
  • Successful candidates will have 8+ years of experience in partnerships, business development, sales, or consulting, a proven track record working with strategy consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Kearney), and the drive and grit required to build a revenue channel in a fast-paced, high-intensity environment.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

  • Insanely high adaptability and a deep passion for the (somewhat chaotic) early stages of company building.
  • Relentless drive – Hunger to dream up, plan, and execute a winning strategy for your territory.
  • Deep fluency in how strategy consulting firms operate — economics and incentives, practice structures, and what it takes to get a firm to invest in a technology alliance.
  • Boundless curiosity and ability to learn quickly - the market dynamics in this space change daily!
  • Deep customer empathy, we're building long-term relationships and that requires always putting our partners and their clients first.
  • The exceptional technical expertise required to become a master of our products and a trusted advisor on your partners' AI strategy.
  • Team player – We win and lose with our incredible Product, Engineering, and GTM peers.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

  • Cognition has active alliances with the world's top strategy consulting firms, each with executive sponsorship and a measurable business plan.
  • The firms proactively bring Devin into their client transformation work, generating partner-initiated pipeline that converts into closed business.
  • Joint plays become repeatable rather than bespoke, and the channel delivers measurable year-over-year revenue growth.

Equal Opportunity

Cognition is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process - please let us know if you need any.

Why work at Cognition

  • Culture: “Talent-dense,” interdisciplinary, low-ego, and urgency-driven. The team works on “the hardest problems in AI” and values shipping real impact.
  • Work model: Hybrid/office-first with major hubs in San Francisco, New York, Austin, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and others. Many roles list specific locations, suggesting in-office presence is expected.
  • Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision insurance; unlimited PTO; meals in primary offices; wellness stipend; commuter benefits; 401(k); HSA/FSA; fertility and family building support.
  • Engineering culture: Strong emphasis on applied AI, customer proximity (“we work alongside our customers”), and building infrastructure that redefines software engineering.

Application questions