Senior Partner Manager - NY Metro

Chainguard; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 145,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible & Remote-First Culture

Equity stock options

100% Covered Health Insurance

Flexible Time Off

18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave

Job summary

Chainguard is seeking a strategic partner/business development professional to drive VAR and regional SI partnerships. You will build and manage partner pipelines, co-sell with sales teams, and enable partners to position Chainguard as a core security and cloud-native solution.

You will recruit and prioritize high-performing partners, execute joint business plans, and track progress through reviews, accelerating deal velocity while maintaining forecast accuracy in a remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software channel manager experience required.
• Experience working with and through VARs.
• Successful sales background with quota attainment.
• Startup experience a plus.
• Entrepreneurial self-starter with ability to structure ambiguous problems into executable steps.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and revenue across VARs and Regional System Integrators, with accountability for bookings.
• Drive pipeline creation through joint prospecting, partner-led identification, and co-selling with field teams.
• Improve partner attach rates by positioning Chainguard as core to security, cloud-native, and modernization offerings.
• Accelerate deal velocity by enabling and engaging partners early in the sales cycle.

Skills

Channel management

VAR partnerships

Quota attainment

Software sales

Startup experience

Strategic communication

Public speaking

Interpersonal skills

Independent worker

Technical aptitude

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 across a portfolio of assigned VARs and Regional System Integrators, with clear accountability for contribution to overall bookings
• Drive consistent pipeline creation through joint prospecting, partner-led opportunity identification, and co-selling motions with aligned field sales teams
• Improve partner attach rates by enabling partners to position Chainguard as a core component of their security, cloud-native, and modernization offerings
• Accelerate deal velocity and win rates by ensuring partners are effectively enabled, engaged early in the sales cycle, and aligned to customer use cases
• Identify, recruit, and prioritize high-performing partners that demonstrate sustained investment in Chainguard through sales focus, technical enablement, and go-to-market execution
• Execute joint business planning with partners, including pipeline targets, solution focus areas, enablement milestones, and marketing initiatives, and track progress through quarterly and annual business reviews
• Drive measurable progress in partner readiness metrics, including certifications, solution validation, demo capability, and delivery confidence
• Increase partner-driven demand generation impact through joint regional marketing campaigns, events, and field activities, with clear attribution to pipeline creation and opportunity progression
• 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 sales, solution engineering, marketing, and partner operations to remove friction, improve execution efficiency, and scale partner success

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

• 5+ years of software channel manager experience required
• Experience working with and through VARs
• Successful sales background required having carried and overachieved quota
• Startup experience a plus
• Entrepreneurial self-starter, who knows how to structure and breakdown ambiguous problems into executable steps
• Strong verbal and written communication including high level of comfort with public speaking and excellent presentation skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build rapport with a variety of groups
• Team player and ability to work independently
• Strong technical aptitude
• Data, metric-driven

Base Salary Range

$145,000 - $170,000 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.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Chainguard’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.