Channel & Partners Lead

About Us Socket helps devs and security teams ship faster by cutting out security busywork. Thousands of orgs use Socket to safely find, audit, and manage open source code. Our customers - from Anthropic to xAI, and Figma to Vercel - love Socket (just check out their tweets https://socket.dev/love to see for yourself!) Founded by Feross Aboukhadijeh https://www.linkedin.com/in/feross/, a long-time open source maintainer with software downloaded over a billion times a month, Socket has raised $ https://socket.dev/blog/series-b125M in funding https://socket.dev/blog/series-c from top angels, operators, and security leaders. About the Role As Socket's first dedicated Channel & Partnerships hire, you'll build our partner ecosystem from the ground up and establish strategic relationships that amplify our reach in the CISO and AppSec space. You'll help security teams and organizations discover Socket through trusted partners while creating scalable revenue channels that complement our direct sales efforts. This is a high-ownership role where you'll work directly with Socket's leadership team to drive mutual success for Socket, our partners, and our customers. What You'll Do - Manage Strategic Security Partner Relationships: Build and lead Socket's alliances with key security consulting firms, system integrators, and technology vendors. Create long-term value through strong executive engagement and multi-level stakeholder relationships. - Create & Execute Partnership Strategies: Build and implement annual partner plans with specific revenue targets, key milestones, and success metrics. Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure partnerships deliver measurable business impact. - Build and Launch Channel Sales Motions: Create joint go-to-market strategies that capitalize on supply chain security trends, partner strengths, and market opportunities within security ecosystems to accelerate revenue growth. - Cultivate Executive-Level Partnerships: Establish and maintain trusted C-level relationships between Socket and security ecosystem partners, serving as a strategic liaison and business connector. - Drive Sales & Partner Enablement: Orchestrate internal training and partner field support, ensuring Socket's sales teams and partner organizations understand how to position and sell joint security solutions effectively. - Execute Co-Marketing & Pipeline Generation: Partner with marketing teams to deliver high-impact co-branded initiatives, security events, and content strategies that build pipeline and enhance market presence. - Conduct Partnership Performance Reviews: Run comprehensive business reviews with partners to assess progress, analyze key metrics, and identify data-driven opportunities for growth and optimization. What You'll Bring - 6+ years of experience in Channel Sales, Partnership Management, or Business Development, with strong preference for security, AppSec, or enterprise software backgrounds selling into CISO and security organizations. - Deep knowledge of enterprise security ecosystems, including understanding how security consultancies, managed services providers, and system integrators serve enterprise clients and position security solutions. - Strong security domain knowledge; ability to engage confidently with security executives and technical teams about supply chain risks, vulnerability management, and enterprise security strategies. - Proven track record in relationship development with experience navigating complex security organizations and driving cross-functional alignment in consulting and enterprise settings. - Strategic mindset with the ability to translate partnership vision into revenue execution while being hands-on with deal closure and partner success initiatives. - Experienced dealmaker with demonstrated success in end-to-end partner negotiations, including agreements, service level commitments, and revenue structures. - Strong executive communicator with confident presentation skills and experience