Strategic Partnership Manager

Job description

WHO WE ARE Polar is the complete data platform for omnichannel commerce. We connect every data source a brand runs on - Shopify, Amazon, NetSuite, Meta, Google, Klaviyo - into a single Snowflake warehouse, layer a commerce semantic layer on top, then add AI so operators can ask questions, get answers, and automate workflows without writing SQL. Our founders came from Turo and Airbnb in Silicon Valley. They built data platforms at scale and wanted to bring that level of sophistication to fast-growing commerce brands. We support 4,000+ merchants, and zero direct competition with a better solution. We serve brands like Quadlock, gorjana, Joseph Joseph, and ARMRA Colostrum. We shipped MCP integrations with Claude and ChatGPT, AI automations, and an AI Data Engineer that builds connectors on demand. Our positioning: the data layer to build agent workflows for commerce. Customers tell us things like "this is a dream come true - it feels like the first time they showed me Shopify". HOW WE OPERATE We publish our operating principles internally and we mean every word. Here are the ones that matter most if you're thinking about joining: Customer Obsession. Every decision starts with: does this make our users' lives better? If the answer isn't clear, go talk to a customer before you build anything. Own the Number. Every metric has an owner. If it's yours, know it cold - the trend, the why, the plan. Don't wait for someone to ask. If it's off track, you should be the first to say so. Raise the Pace. Always ask: what would it take to do this in half the time? Speed is our edge. We try 100 things while the competitor tries one. Don't Fail Silently. If it's broken, say it. If you're stuck, raise your hand. Hiding problems is the one thing that will actually get you in trouble. Here to Win, Not to Be Right. Quiet ego, loud standards. Don't fight to be right - fight to win together. Be ruthless on quality, never rude about it. Optimize for Polar, Not Your Function. "Not my scope" doesn't exist here. If it makes us win, it's your scope. We're a remote-first team that runs daily standups, ships weekly, and holds ourselves to a standard most companies talk about but don't enforce. We're transitioning from founder-led intensity to systematic company intensity - which means we need people who can maintain the pace autonomously, not just when someone's watching. WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS Partnerships are our highest-performing channel. One partnership manager has generated $1.1M in revenue since July 2025, with a Q1 run rate approaching $2M annually. Partner-referred deals close at 52% vs 37% for direct sales. Partnerships now account for 36% of total company revenue. The opportunity is massive and barely tapped. The Shopify ecosystem alone has 80 Platinum partners globally (each managing 50-150 brands), 950 Premier/Plus partners (each managing ~20 clients), and a total addressable market north of $100M just from the platinum tier. We've proven the model works - now we need to scale it. This is part founder-energy relationship building, part systems thinking at scale. WHAT YOU'LL OWN - Partner enablement and training - getting agency teams to understand Polar's value prop, demo the product themselves, and refer qualified brands. You'll create the "Polar operating system" for partners - Full-funnel partner pipeline from identification through activation to revenue. 43% of current partners have referred at least one deal - your job is to push that number significantly higher - Partner economics and deal structure. You'll work with a 20% discount model (commission or client discount), master agency accounts, and bi-directional lead sharing. You need to make the math work for both sides - AI and MCP as a partnership differentiator. Our MCP integrations are a major draw for technical agencies - you need to demo this confidently and help partners position it to their clients - In-person relationship building at Shopify events, industry conferences, and agency visits. This role requires travel and face time - partnerships close on trust - Tech-enabled scale - building automated workflows, partner nurture sequences, and systems that let you manage 100+ partner relationships without everything being manual WHO YOU ARE We don't have a rigid checklist of requirements. We're looking for a specific kind of person: - You've spent 3-4 years in partnerships, channel sales, or business development at a SaaS company. This is not your first job - you've built partner programs before and know what breaks at scale - You're tech-savvy and systems-oriented. You think about automation first and manual effort second. You've used or built partner tooling, CRM workflows, or enablement programs - You know the Shopify ecosystem, ecommerce agency world, or DTC brand landscape. You understand how agencies make money and why they'd want to recommend a data platform - You can handle the full funnel independently - from cold outreach to partner activation to ongoing relationship management. You don't need someone to set up your meetings - You're comfortable demoing product and talking data with technical agency teams. AI, MCP, attribution models - you can explain the value without a sales engineer - You're energized by in-person relationship building. Events, dinners, agency visits - you see these as opportunities, not obligations - You communicate clearly and close loops fast. No messages go unanswered, no commitments slip without an update WHAT SEPARATES A-PLAYERS You think about partnerships as a system. You build the enablement materials, the automated nurture, and the feedback loops that let you scale from 20 partners to 200 without burning out. You understand that partner close rates are higher because the trust is pre-built - and you invest in that trust systematically. You're as comfortable building a Slack workflow as you are buying dinner for an agency founder. WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SEE These are the results partners help their clients achieve with Polar: - Thiege consolidated 9 different tools into Polar and saved $300K per year vs building their own data stack - CABA improved their ROAS by 65% using our attribution model and incrementality testing to reallocate spend - Modular Closet grew Klaviyo flow revenue by 50% with our CDP and identity resolution layer - Quadlock started with us below $10M - we helped them scale to 9 figures and a $350M acquisition HOW WE HIRE We believe the best people want to go through a demanding process. We've learned the hard way that great interviewers aren't always great operators - so our process is designed to see how you think, not how you present. 1. Motivation screen - A quick call to understand what drives you and whether there's mutual fit 2. Live case study - A real scenario where you work through a problem in real time. No prep decks, no take-homes. We want to see how you actually operate 3. Leadership conversations - Meet the team, understand the culture, make sure this is somewhere you want to build Our hiring bar: if this person started a company, would we want to join them?