Partner Manager - Commercial

Chainguard; United States; Remote; USD 123,000 - 145,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible & Remote-First Culture

Equity options

100% Health Insurance

Flexible Time Off

Parental Leave

Job summary

Chainguard is seeking a strategic partner/business development professional to drive VAR relationships and revenue in a remote-first environment. You will own partner-led pipeline, align with sales leadership, and enable co-selling across a broad VAR portfolio.

Ideal candidates have 3+ years in channel or software sales, a track record hitting quota, and comfort discussing containers, CI/CD, and software supply chain security.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in channel, partner, or software sales.
• Experience working with VARs or resellers targeting mid-market or commercial customers.
• Proven sales history with quota attainment.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and revenue for Commercial segment.
• Lead for Commercial sales team alignment with partner strategy and targets.
• Enable joint prospecting, co-selling, and partner-led opportunities with AEs.
• Improve partner attach rates by positioning Chainguard in security and cloud-native offerings.
• Accelerate deal velocity by ensuring partner enablement and early engagement.

Skills

Channel sales

VAR/Reseller experience

Quota attainment

Startup/early-stage programs

Entrepreneurial mindset

Program & process scaling

Communication (verbal & written)

Relationship building

Technical aptitude: containers, CI/CD,

Data-driven, pipeline discipline

Tools

SFDC

Job description

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

THE ROLE, IN A NUTSHELL:

We're looking for a highly motivated strategic partner/business development professional (VARs) who has strong market knowledge, a cloud and security network, and enjoys building relationships with key decision makers to evangelize building secure and reliable software. Our sales team walks a mile in their customers shoes and wants our customers and prospects to see the immense value and expertise Chainguard's solutions offer.

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

• Own and deliver partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and revenue outcomes for the Commercial segment, across a broad portfolio of VARs and resellers, with clear accountability for contribution to Commercial bookings
• Serve as the dedicated partner lead for the Commercial sales team, aligning partner strategy, targets, and priorities with the Commercial sales leader
• Drive consistent pipeline creation through joint prospecting, partner-led opportunity identification, and co-selling motions with Commercial AEs
• Improve partner attach rates by enabling partners to position Chainguard as a core component of their security, cloud-native, and modernization offerings for mid-market and commercial customers
• Accelerate deal velocity and win rates in a high-velocity sales cycle by making sure partners are enabled, engaged early, and aligned to common customer use cases
• Identify, recruit, and activate partners at scale, and quickly prioritize the ones showing real sales focus, technical enablement, and go-to-market commitment
• Build scalable, one-to-many programs, including enablement sessions, sales kits, deal registration motions, and partner campaigns, that keep a broad partner base productive without one-off support
• Execute lightweight joint business plans with top partners, including pipeline targets, enablement milestones, and marketing initiatives, and track progress through quarterly business reviews
• Maintain strong forecast accuracy and pipeline hygiene by managing partner opportunities in SFDC and related tools, ensuring visibility into sourced, influenced, and co-sell deals
• Partner cross-functionally with Commercial sales, solution engineering, marketing, and partner operations to remove friction, standardize what works, and scale partner success

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

• 3+ years of channel, partner, or software sales experience
• Experience working with and through VARs or resellers, ideally selling into mid-market or commercial customers
• Successful sales background, with a track record of carrying and hitting quota
• Startup or early-stage program experience strongly preferred
• Builder mindset: an entrepreneurial self-starter who can structure and break down ambiguous problems into executable steps
• Scales through programs and process, not hours, and is comfortable managing a broad partner portfolio
• Strong verbal and written communication, and comfortable presenting to partner sales and technical teams
• Ability to build rapport with partners, sellers, and cross-functional teams
• Strong technical aptitude, comfortable discussing containers, CI/CD, and software supply chain security
• Data and metric-driven, with strong organization and pipeline discipline

Base Salary Range $123,000 - $145,000 USD

About Us

We live and breathe our company values: We are customer obsessed - We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better. We have a bias for intentional action - We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast. We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) - We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey. We trust each other and assume good intentions - We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

• Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
• Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
• 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
• Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need - to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
• 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer.

We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.

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