Partner Manager

We are not here to blend in. We are here to redefine what observability means and how it is delivered.

groundcover has built a radically different approach to cloud-native observability that competitors can’t match. As a part of our Partnership team, you won’t just sell and market a product, you’ll help reshape the narrative of the category so the world understands why groundcover is the clear, modern choice for engineering and operations teams.

groundcover is a fast-growing Series B startup delivering the industry’s most modern observability platform for cloud-native environments. Powered by BYOC and eBPF and designed for Kubernetes from day one, our platform delivers full stack observability with dramatically lower cost, operational overhead, and complexity.

As systems evolve toward AI powered services and LLM based applications, observability must evolve with them. groundcover is built for this reality, enabling teams to understand performance, reliability, and behavior across microservices, infrastructure, and AI workloads.

We’re not chasing category leaders - we’re redefining the category. As the second member of the partners and alliances team, you will play a foundational role in defining the groundcover ecosystem by developing the cloud alliances and the channel partners .You will work directly with practice owners, sales leaders, partner managers, partner marketing, product, and presales teams to reshape how modern observability is positioned — challenging legacy approaches from vendors like Datadog, Grafana Labs, and Dynatrace, and building a partner-first ecosystem focused on speed, clarity, and real engineering value.

This is a hybrid role in our San Francisco office (3 days a week)

What You’ll Do

Strategic Partnership Leadership

• Serve as the primary global point of contact for a strategic CSP partnership and portfolio of GTM partners, carrying a revenue target and contributing to a culture of moving fast, thinking big and building bold
• Identify, recruit and onboard new partners; grow existing partners
• Develop and execute joint partner business plans including co-sell, co-marketing, and co-building elements where appropriate
• Lead regular business reviews, ensure executive alignment and drive accountability on shared goals

Go-to-Market Execution

• Drive pipeline and revenue through joint field engagement and enablement of partner sales, customer success and pre-sales teams on product offerings, sales strategies and market trends
• Represent groundcover at industry events, partner meetings, and ecosystem programs
• Track, measure, and report partner performance and revenue impact

Cross-functional Coordination

• Partner with Sales, Marketing, Product and Solution Architect teams ensure alignment in the development and execution of the partnership plans
• Collaborate with internal teams to create partner programs, co-marketing initiatives, and sales enablement tools to drive awareness, thought leadership, and demand generation campaigns.

Operational Excellence

• Own partner governance, documentation, and CRM / PRM tracking
• Support contract negotiations and execution of partnership agreements
• Collaborate with Legal and Finance to ensure compliance with requirements
• Advocate internally for partner-driven opportunities, escalations and initiatives

• 5+ years of experience in strategic alliances, business development, or partner management within enterprise software, ideally with experience in cloud, developer tools, data, analytics, or enterprise AI ecosystems.
• Experience as a sales hunter or account management in a SaaS company is a plus
• Proven and consistent track record of growing and managing alliances with measurable business impact, and meeting and exceeding revenue targets.
• Strong understanding of enterprise technology stacks and partner go-to-market strategies.
• Aptitude for understanding and communicating technical topics and value delivered in a business context.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and executive relationship management skills.
• Experience working with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and ISV/channel partners is a plus.
• Strong understanding of observability concepts including metrics, logs, traces, profiling, and reliability practices is a plus.
• Familiarity with leveraging AI driven systems, LLM based applications, or a strong desire to develop expertise in this space.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives in a fast-paced, highly matrixed organization.
• Skilled in managing time and resources; sound approach to qualifying opportunities
• Self directed mindset with comfort operating in ambiguity and building new programs from the ground up.
• Eagerness to learn, ask questions and challenge convention.

You’ll Thrive Here If You

• Enjoy building programs from the ground up
• Are comfortable operating in ambiguity and fast-moving environments
• Are commercially minded and technically curious
• Like challenging legacy assumptions and building new market categories