Developer Relations Manager

About IFM

The Institute of Foundation Models (IFM) is a global AI research lab dedicated to open and independent development of frontier-class foundation models. Launched in May 2025 by MBZUAI, IFM operates from advanced lab facilities in Abu Dhabi, Silicon Valley and Paris. IFM’s model portfolio includes K2 series, the fully open-source fleet of LLMs; Jais, the most advanced Arabic LLM; and PAN, the next-gen World Model for embodied reasoning and real-world simulation.

Role Summary

The Developer Relations Manager drives developer adoption of IFM’s large language models (LLMs). With the model itself as the product, the role helps model users, humans and agents alike, understand its capabilities, evaluate its suitability and build with it.

Based in Silicon Valley, you will work closely with users and builders across the full developer journey, from discovery and evaluation to integration and sustained use. You will work with researchers and engineers to translate that experience into model improvements, earning trust on both sides and using technical evidence to influence priorities without direct authority.

This is a hands-on technical role requiring practical experience building with LLMs and a sound understanding of their capabilities, limitations and use in real applications.

Travel requirement

Up to 25%

Key Responsibilities

• Build relationships with model users and builders, identify valuable use cases, and support adoption from discovery and evaluation through integration and sustained use.
• Develop and maintain model guidance, documentation and tested examples for human developers and coding agents, including tool calling, structured outputs and multi-step workflows.
• Represent IFM’s LLMs through technical demonstrations, talks and workshops, explaining their capabilities and limitations clearly and working with Community to reach relevant builders.
• Work with ecosystem partners and open-source maintainers to enable reliable use of IFM’s models in relevant frameworks, inference tools and agent environments.
• Investigate adoption barriers and reproduce issues across model behavior, integration and deployment, translating findings into evaluation cases and recommendations that influence research priorities.
• Work with Developer Experience (DevEx) and model engineers to prioritize technical improvements, resolve issues and validate results with users.
• Engage early users before release, assess readiness for developer use, and track successful integrations, task outcomes and sustained adoption after launch.

Qualifications

Academic qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Minimum requirements

• Experience in developer relations, applied AI engineering, developer experience or a comparable technical role, with a track record of helping developers adopt technical products.
• Hands-on experience building, evaluating and deploying applications with LLMs, with sound judgment about model capabilities, limitations and trade-offs in quality, latency and cost.
• Strong Python skills, with the ability to independently build working examples, test integrations and diagnose problems.
• A portfolio of clear technical documentation, tutorials, demonstrations or open-source contributions, supported by experience explaining complex concepts directly to developers.
• Experience working closely with researchers and engineers, using reproducible evidence and clear reasoning to influence priorities without direct authority.
• Familiarity with the LLM developer ecosystem, including inference tools, application frameworks and agent workflows, and experience collaborating with technical users, partners or maintainers.

Preferred experience

• Contributing to model launches, early-access programs or open-source integrations.
• Working with open-weight models, including fine-tuning or self-hosted deployment.
• Developing guidance and examples that coding agents can use reliably, alongside supporting human developers.

Visa Sponsorship

This position is eligible for visa sponsorship.

Compensation

$200,000 – $250,000/year + discretionary performance bonus + benefits

The posted salary range represents the company’s good faith estimate of the base compensation for this position upon hire. The actual base compensation offered may vary within this range depending on individual qualifications, including but not limited to relevant skills, experience, education, certifications, and specific business needs. In addition to base salary, total compensation includes an annual discretionary performance bonus and comprehensive benefits.

Benefits Include

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits
• Bonus
• 401K Plan
• Generous paid time off, sick leave and holidays
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Assistance Program
• Life insurance and disability