Director, Product Partnerships

We're transforming the grocery industry At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers. Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table. Instacart is a Flex First team There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work. Why this role is on the menu Instacart’s product and technology partnerships — spanning logistics, retail technology, and enterprise products — are a core lever for how we build and grow. But as our ambitions scale into new product areas and international markets, the function needs more than experienced deal-makers. It needs a senior leader who can set the multi-year vision, personally own the most consequential relationships, and shape how Instacart decides what to build versus buy versus partner. Without this person, we risk reactive partnership decisions, misalignment between partnerships and product strategy, and missed first-mover opportunities in markets where speed matters. We’re hiring a Director of Product Partnerships to lead the team and function at the highest level — influencing build-buy-partner tradeoffs with senior leadership, taking first-of-a-kind bets from 0 to 1, and making Instacart one of the most sought-after partners in grocery technology. What you’ll cook up in your first year . • Instacart has a clear, credible multi-year partnership strategy across Logistics, Retail Technology, and Enterprise — one that leadership has bought into and that's actively shaping which product bets we pursue versus partner for. • At least one first-of-a-kind deal — in a new product area or international market — has gone from concept to signed to launched, with a playbook behind it that the team can repeat. • The partnerships team is operating at a higher level — Senior Managers and Managers have clearer ownership, stronger frameworks for deal evaluation and partner performance, and a leader who’s actively developing them for what comes next. • Product and Engineering leadership treat this person as a genuine strategic partner — not just a deal-closer — because they’ve visibly influenced roadmap decisions and brought external perspective into how we build. • Instacart’s most critical external partners — at the C-suite and executive level — have a named senior relationship owner who shows up with authority, earns trust, and surfaces the opportunities that matter most to the business. The secret ingredients we’re looking for Must-have pantry staples (Minimum Qualifications) • 15+ years of experience in business development, product partnerships, or strategic alliances in technology or closely adjacent industries, with end-to-end ownership of complex, multi-stakeholder deals from sourcing through launch. • Demonstrated experience building and leading high-performing partnerships teams, including managing managers and structuring a function for scale. • Proven track record of closing complex, non-standard technology or strategic partnership agreements — including first-of-a-kind deals — with C-suite or executive-level counterparts. • Experience serving as a true strategic partner to Product and…