[Hiring] Channel Sales Manager @CIQ

Role Description

As Senior Channel Manager, you will own CIQ’s channel-led revenue as an individual contributor, reporting directly to the company’s sales leadership. You will build and run CIQ’s partner motion across three fronts:

• Recruiting new channel partners (resellers, VARs, SIs, MSPs) whose customer base and technical focus align with Rocky Linux, RLC, and the broader CIQ portfolio; build the recruitment pipeline, run outreach, and close partner agreements directly.
• Develop existing partners into producing partners through seller and SE enablement, joint business planning, co-marketing and demand-generation coordination, and accountability to mutually agreed targets; diagnose why partners are not selling and fix it.
• Own distributor relationships and economics, including transactional flow, margin, and incentive structures, and using distributor reach to extend partner recruitment without CIQ carrying all the overhead.
• Define and run the program mechanics: partner tiers, deal registration, the margin model, enablement, and the metrics that govern them.
• Work cross-functionally with direct sales (to manage channel conflict and run co-sell), marketing (partner demand generation), and product (to feed partner and market signal back).
• Carry and forecast a channel-sourced and influenced pipeline contribution.

Qualifications

• A genuine self-starter mindset, comfortable operating with ambiguity, and a near-blank slate.
• Strong commercial instincts, with the ability to negotiate partner economics and defend margin.
• Credibility with both partner executives and partner field reps.
• The discipline to run their book on numbers, not relationships alone.
• A hands-on operator’s approach, doing the work directly (outreach, partner conversations, enablement sessions, negotiations) rather than delegating it.
• A friendly, collaborative, humble, honest, and always striving to be better attitude.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience.
• 8+ years of experience in channel, partner, or alliances sales, ideally in infrastructure, open source, or enterprise software.
• A track record of personally building partner relationships that produced real revenue (not solely managing a team that did).
• Experience standing up or materially growing partner program mechanics: tiering, deal registration, margin models, and enablement.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible paid time off.
• Employee stock options.
• Remote work; no travel required for most positions.