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 to see for yourself!)

Founded by Feross Aboukhadijeh, a long-time open source maintainer with software downloaded over a billion times a month, Socket has raised $125M in funding 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 engaging CISO-level decision makers and security leadership teams.

• Revenue-focused mindset with proven ability to build channel programs, drive partner-generated revenue, and identify opportunities that create mutual value across partnerships.

Hiring is a big decision on both sides. Read more about our Hiring Philosophy and how we approach the process at Socket.

Benefits: Our benefits are crafted to support you and your family, so you can take care of what matters most and thrive in and outside of work. We offer:

• Market competitive salary bands

• Meaningful equity program

• Comprehensive health benefits for you and your family (99% coverage)

• Flexible time-off, holidays, and winter shutdown to rest & recharge

• Paid parental leave

• Remote-first, with quarterly team off-sites

At Socket, we

1. Pursue Excellence: We set ourselves apart by consistently delivering work of exceptional quality and distinction.

2. Move with urgency and focus: We prioritize swift, decisive action.

3. Think rigorously: We care about being right and it often takes reasoning from first principles to get there. We value alternative perspectives and have constructive discussions.

4. Trust and amplify: We overtrust, always assume good intent, and give specific feedback to help each other improve.

5. Feel a strong sense of ownership: We wear many hats and feel a strong sense of overall ownership of the company and we're non-territorial regarding our nominal domains.

6. Are customer obsessed: We relentlessly prioritize the needs of our customers, striving to exceed their expectations and delight them at every interaction.