Founding Partnerships Lead

Infilla is looking for a Founding Partnerships Lead to build the network of allies, funders, and distribution partners that brings Infilla warm introductions, funded deployments, and deals that direct sales couldn't reach alone.

As our first partnerships hire, you'll build Infilla's relationships with the industry associations, consultants, and philanthropies that shape how cities and counties approve housing. We already know which organizations matter in each state. Your job is to turn that playbook into trusted relationships and a steady flow of warm introductions for our sales team.

Infilla's mission is to make more housing happen faster by making permitting unremarkable. The U.S. is short 4-7 million homes, and local permitting is one of the top bottlenecks with approvals taking months to years. Infilla is building the modern permitting platform that helps local governments review projects faster, more consistently, and more transparently. Customers include San Francisco, New York City, and the State of Delaware, among others. We're backed by Basis Set Ventures, Base10 Partners, Urban Innovation Fund, SHAKTI VC, 20Growth, Bloomberg Beta, and 20+ founders/operators who've built products at scale.

• Infilla has trusted relationships in 15 priority states with the industry associations who shape permitting, housing, or municipal government

• 3+ philanthropic partners run innovation-grant programs that fund municipalities to adopt Infilla

• 3+ consulting partners have signed referral or co-sell agreements, write Infilla into their client proposals, and have each brought Infilla at least one qualified opportunity

• Every ally, partner, and funder lives in one tracker with an owner, a next step, and the pipeline or dollars it produced

• Built partnerships that produced results you can name in deals, dollars, and dates, not just MOUs signed or events attended

• Run complex projects and many stakeholder relationships at once, in consulting, chief of staff, policy, or startup roles

• Ended or turned down partnerships that weren't working, and can explain why the partners you kept said yes and stayed engaged

• Earned past partners or funders who would happily work with you again

• Made AI a core part of how you work, not an occasional assist

Relationship building is where you must be great; commercial judgment is a close second.

• Relationship building: You earn trust fast and keep it. You're equally comfortable with homebuilders, planners, funders, and elected officials, across red and blue states. You learn what each ally needs and deliver it before asking for anything, and you turn one intro into three.

• Commercial judgment: You know which relationships lead to deals and money. You pick allies by whether they reach our buyers, understand referral and co-sell terms, and can present Infilla as an outcome a foundation already wants.

• Project management and follow-through: You run dozens of relationships at once without dropping anything. Every ally has a next step and a date, and every intro you hand to sales arrives with context.

• Clear writing: Your intro emails, partner one-pagers, and grant applications lead with the point, use real numbers, and stay calm and nonpartisan.

• Scrappy, AI-leveraged execution: You're a team of one who ships the good-enough draft now and improves it later. You use AI daily for research, drafting, and meeting prep, and you keep the CRM current without being asked.

• Existing relationships in housing and land use: Homebuilders Associations, Building Industry Associations, ULI, housing nonprofits, or YIMBY groups

• Won foundation or grant funding

• GovTech or public-sector experience

Research shows women & minorities are more likely to consider themselves unqualified if they don't meet every single requirement in a job description. This represents what we're ideally looking for, but everyone is unique. We hire for strengths & potential, not lack of weakness or a perfect resume fit.

• This is a remote US-based role, with a preference for candidates in Washington, D.C. We're open to a contract-to-hire or full-time arrangement.

  • Travel is on an as-needed basis for conferences and networking events

• You will join the GTM team and report to the CEO

• Full-time benefits: meaningful equity, healthcare / vision / dental insurance, 401K, and 26 days of PTO including federal holidays

• We cannot sponsor visas at this time

We aim to make this happen in 1-2 weeks:

1. Initial call with Jenny, our CEO, to assess mutual fit (20 min)

2. Past work deep dive with Jenny to assess relationship building and commercial judgment (60 min)

3. Network-building session with Jenny on how you'd grow Infilla's relationships in one priority state (60 min)

4. 3 reference checks, including at least one partner or funder you've worked with

• Ideas > Hierarchy - Best idea wins regardless of source. Be intellectually honest.

• Kind > Nice - Share clear, helpful feedback often. Voice your concerns and listen.

• Courage > Comfort - We do the right thing, even when hard or uncomfortable.

• Hours > Weeks - Solve it in hours, not "eventually." Speed is our biggest edge as a startup.

• Fix > Flag - See a problem, own it, and fix it — don't wait for someone else to.

Infilla 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 characteristic protected by applicable law. If you need an accommodation at any point in the interview process, let us know and we'll make it work.