Partner Manager
Job description
About the role
The role advances strategic alliances with systems integrators, cloud providers, and AI specialists. Partnerships are moved from initial evaluation through long term expansion and renewal. The manager aligns product and engineering roadmaps to deliver measurable outcomes for key enterprise customers.
Sales roles connect a company's product with the customers who need it. Representatives research accounts, run demos, handle objections, and close deals. The work is quota driven and moves quickly. Strong sellers combine listening skills with product knowledge and steady follow through. Sales roles reward consistent activity and honest qualification of deals. Most companies use a defined sales process, and reps are trained on it before being left on their own.
Key facts
What you'll do
Company goals are advanced through a portfolio that is shaped, prioritized, and driven as a business. Partners are supported internally to align roadmaps and push back on tradeoffs, driving accountability against agreed metrics. New opportunities for collaboration and growth are identified by building strong relationships with key partners.
Requirements
The candidate brings 3+ years of experience in business development, product partnerships, or consulting. Experience supporting or leading strategic partnerships with technical or product integrations is required. Cross-functional operating skills are needed while working with product, engineering, legal, finance, or sales teams on complex initiatives. Partner relationships are owned independently, scaled, and expanded to drive long term value. Ambiguity is navigated using strategic judgment to prioritize competing opportunities and make trade-offs. Communication functions clearly across internal and partner organizations. The candidate is self-directed and adaptable, comfortable in fast moving environments with evolving priorities. Consulting, MBA, or business generalist backgrounds are a plus, and experience at high-growth or early-stage companies is preferred.
Practical notes
The role operates in a fast-moving environment with evolving priorities and may require travel. Typical interview steps
Sales hiring often includes a role play, a discovery call simulation, and a presentation. Candidates may be asked to pitch a product to a panel or handle a tough objection. Behavioral questions focus on past quota attainment and deal history. Energy and preparation matter. Interviewers often simulate the job in the interview itself, so be ready to run a short discovery call or demo. Practicing your own sales pitch out loud helps.
Good to know
Partnership managers build and maintain relationships with external organizations to drive mutual growth. Success in this role depends on strong strategic judgment, clear communication, and comfort operating in fast-moving environments. Generalist experience across product, engineering, and commercial teams is common in this type of role. Tools commonly include customer relationship platforms, collaboration software, and business intelligence dashboards. This role typically works with enterprise stakeholders and cross-functional partners to align initiatives.
Questions to ask
Good questions to ask the employer in the interview: what does success look like in the first six months, how is the team structured, what is the current biggest challenge, and how are decisions made. Asking about growth paths and the review process is also well received. Employers expect questions, and good ones show preparation.
Career growth
Sales careers can move from SDR or associate to account executive, senior AE, manager, and director roles. Some sellers move into partnerships, account management, or revenue operations. Compensation typically mixes a base with commission tied to results. High performers in sales typically move into larger accounts, team leadership, or sales operations. Quota history and references carry the most weight in promotion.
About the company
Our mission is to bring autonomy to software engineering. We build software development agents that accelerate the world's largest enterprise engineering teams.