Roles we recruit
Seven practices, 27 functions. Start at the practice when you cannot yet name the title; go straight to the function when you can.
Browse all 229 roles Brief us on a seatFlat 15% of first-year base · shortlist in 10 working days
Six seats sit under channel and partnerships, from the affiliate manager paying commission on referrals to the alliance manager co-selling with a cloud provider. We split them by the stage of the partner motion each one owns, screen for partner revenue we can verify, and charge a flat 15% only once your hire starts.
Most partnerships briefs put one of three jobs under one title: signing partners, getting signed partners to sell, or co-selling with a few large ones. We start with your partner type and the stage that stalls, then the title.
The partner motion, and the seat that owns each stage
Moves: partnerships signed on terms that produce revenue
1 seat
Sourcing, negotiating and signing new partnerships: integration, referral, co-marketing and OEM deals, each with a business case and contract terms behind it.
Brief us when you have a list of companies you should partner with and nobody whose job is to get them signed.
Moves: time to first partner deal and active partner rate
1 seat
Partners after the contract: onboarding, enablement, certification and business reviews, judged on time to a partner's first deal and how many stay active.
Brief us when partners sign up, sit through one training session and never register a deal.
Moves: referred customers and cost per acquisition
1 seat
The affiliate program: recruiting publishers, review sites and creators, commission design, tracking in a platform such as PartnerStack or Impact, payouts and fraud checks.
Brief us when affiliates send traffic but you cannot tell which ones bring paying customers.
Moves: partner-sourced pipeline and revenue
2 seats
Revenue sold through resellers, distributors, MSPs and marketplaces: which partners to sign, joint business plans, deal registration and rules of engagement with direct sales.
Brief us when partners sell your product, or should, and nobody owns the channel number.
A book of reseller accounts and what they resell: pipeline reviews, pricing tiers, quoting, deal registrations and the margin that keeps them selling you.
Brief us when resellers list you on their line card but sell a competitor, or quote you only when asked.
Moves: co-sell wins and marketplace revenue
1 seat
A few strategic alliances with cloud providers, platforms or systems integrators: the joint plan, co-selling, marketplace listings and executive sponsors on both sides.
Brief us when a large partner could sell alongside you and nobody on your side runs the relationship.
Measured on
Partner revenue is easy to take credit for. Sourced and influenced blur, a signed agreement sounds like a result, and a well-known partner logo does the talking. We screen for what the partners actually sold, and who on the candidate’s side made it happen.
We ask for partner-sourced and partner-influenced revenue by year, how their employer defined each, and which deals the direct team also claimed. Influence with no sourced figure is where we dig.
Candidates walk us through a partner they onboarded: the joint business plan, the enablement, the first registered deal and what they did when the partner went quiet.
With the candidate’s agreement we speak to someone at a partner they managed. A partnership that only worked for one side does not last, and the partner knows which side it worked for.
We hand candidates a deal claimed by both a partner and a direct rep and ask them to settle it, then check with a sales leader who worked beside them how they handled the real ones.
Not sure which seat you need? Tell us who your partners are, how many of them produce and where partner revenue stalls, and we will tell you which of the six owns it.
Public US benchmarks, read October 2026. Channel sales pay adds incentives to base: Salary.com puts total cash compensation for channel sales managers at $170,595 against a $129,639 median base. Partnership and alliance bands sit close together, above the channel manager band.
Each bar runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, the middle half of reported pay.
Base salaryWages including commission (BLS)
Channel Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$96,568 to $111,279 base
Strategic Partnerships Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$117,613 to $143,236 base
Alliance Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$117,440 to $142,358 base
Affiliate Manager
Salary.com base benchmark
$127,829 to $158,843 base
Sales managers
BLS, all industries, wages include commission
$100,360 to $207,340
Channel Manager, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Alliance Manager and Affiliate Manager: Salary.com base salary, 25th to 75th percentile, United States, as of October 1, 2026; Salary.com’s affiliate marketing manager benchmark is lower, at $111,936 to $134,902. Lead: Salary.com median base and total cash compensation for channel sales managers, as of October 1, 2026. Sales managers: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, annual wage at the 25th and 75th percentiles (SOC 11-2022), all industries. Public aggregates, not ZaphyrRecruit placement data.
The clock starts when the brief is signed and stops when three to five calibrated candidates are in front of you. Most of that time is spent talking to people, not searching for them.
Day 1
Forty-five minutes with whoever the hire reports to. We leave with the number the seat owns, the range you can pay and the two or three things that genuinely disqualify.
Days 2 to 7
We build the list from people doing the job now, approach them directly and screen every name against the brief before it reaches you.
Days 8 to 10
Three to five people, each with a page: what they have run, why they fit this seat, pay expectations, notice period and where they are weak.
After the shortlist
Interviews run at your pace. We handle scheduling, references and the counter-offer conversation, and nothing is payable until your hire starts.
Three clients, quoted as they wrote to us about searches we ran for them. We publish no names or logos without permission.
In a B2B company, a channel manager owns the revenue you sell through partners: resellers, distributors, MSPs and marketplaces. It is a sales role, not the hotel distribution software that shares the name. Day to day they choose which partners to sign, agree joint business plans, run deal registration, train partner sellers and settle disputes with your direct team. Judge the seat on partner-sourced revenue and pipeline, not on how many partners signed up.
A channel manager runs many partners who resell your product; an alliance manager runs a few strategic partners who sell alongside you. Channel work is volume: recruiting, enabling and incentivizing resellers, distributors and MSPs, measured on partner-sourced revenue. Alliance work is depth: a joint plan with a cloud provider, software platform or systems integrator, co-selling into shared accounts, marketplace listings such as AWS Marketplace, and executive sponsors on both sides. We brief against the partner type, not the title.
No. We hire the staff who build and run your partner program, not the resellers, MSPs, referral partners or affiliates who join it. Recruiting partners is the job of the people we place, so we screen for it: how they chose which partners to approach, how many they signed, and how many of those went on to register deals or produce revenue.
We charge a flat 15% of the hire’s first-year base salary, payable only once they start. On a $120,000 base that is $18,000. Variable pay tied to partner revenue is not part of the calculation, there is no retainer, and nothing is payable if the search does not produce a hire. If a placement leaves inside the guarantee period, we rerun the search at no further fee.
Salary.com puts channel managers at $96,568 to $111,279 base and strategic partnerships managers at $117,613 to $143,236 (October 2026), with alliance managers at $117,440 to $142,358. Channel sales pay carries incentives: Salary.com puts total cash compensation for channel sales managers at $170,595 against a $129,639 median base. The BLS puts the middle half of all sales managers between $100,360 and $207,340 a year (May 2025).
Ten working days from a signed brief to a shortlist of three to five calibrated candidates. Our screen runs inside that window, so every name arrives with partner-sourced revenue we have checked and a walkthrough of one partner they took from signed to first deal. Interviews and the offer then run at your pace, and your own loop can focus on your partners and your team.
Hire a channel manager first if resellers, MSPs or distributors will sell your product, and a strategic partnerships manager first if the plan is integrations, co-marketing or a few referral deals. Either way, prove the sale direct first, with a founder or an account executive closing: partners scale a sale that already works and rarely create one. Partner success and reseller seats come later, once partners produce.
Yes. Several seats hired as one structure is how we run a pod: a channel manager, the partner success manager who activates new partners and the reseller manager who works the existing book, briefed together so later hires do not restart the search and each seat knows where its job ends. The same 15% applies to each hire, payable as each one starts.
Tell us which partners you sell through and what the seat should own. We reply within one business day with which of the six seats it is and what it pays.
We build shortlists from people doing this work now, often before a seat is advertised. Set up a job alert for channel and partnerships roles, or send your CV and we will come to you when a seat opens.
Channel & Partnerships sits in our Sales & Pipeline practice, beside the direct sellers who work the same accounts. If the gap is in your own sales motion, or in growing the accounts partners bring in, start there.