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CIQ builds enterprise infrastructure powering demanding workloads across operating systems, AI infrastructure, high-performance computing, and cloud-native orchestration. The company is the founding support partner of Rocky Linux and developer of RLC Pro Enterprise Linux distributions, Fuzzball workload orchestration, Warewulf Pro cluster provisioning, and Ascender Pro automation. Customers include major enterprises, government agencies, and research institutions in HPC, AI/ML, defense, and regulated industries.
As Senior Channel Manager, you will own CIQ's channel-led revenue as an individual contributor, reporting directly to sales leadership. You will build and run the partner motion across three fronts: recruiting new channel partners, developing and enabling existing partners, and managing distributor relationships. Every partner activity ties back to sourced and influenced revenue.
Key responsibilities include:
- Identify, qualify, and recruit new channel partners (resellers, VARs, SIs, MSPs) whose customer base and technical focus align with Rocky Linux, RLC, and the broader CIQ portfolio; build the recruitment pipeline, run outreach, and close partner agreements directly.
- Develop existing partners into producing partners through seller and SE enablement, joint business planning, co-marketing and demand-generation coordination, and accountability to mutually agreed targets; diagnose why partners are not selling and fix it.
- Own distributor relationships and economics, including transactional flow, margin, and incentive structures, and use distributor reach to extend partner recruitment without CIQ carrying all the overhead.
- Define and run program mechanics: partner tiers, deal registration, the margin model, enablement, and the metrics that govern them.
- Work cross-functionally with direct sales (to manage channel conflict and run co-sell), marketing (partner demand generation), and product (to feed partner and market signal back).
- Carry and forecast a channel-sourced and influenced pipeline contribution.
You will be a genuine self-starter comfortable operating with ambiguity and a near-blank slate. You bring strong commercial instincts, the ability to negotiate partner economics and defend margin, and credibility with both partner executives and field reps. You run your book on numbers, not relationships alone, and take a hands-on operator's approach, doing the work directly (outreach, partner conversations, enablement sessions, negotiations) rather than delegating. You are friendly, collaborative, humble, honest, and always striving to be better.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant work experience.
- 8+ years of experience in channel, partner, or alliances sales, ideally in infrastructure, open source, or enterprise software.
- A track record of personally building partner relationships that produced real revenue (not solely managing a team that did).
- Experience standing up or materially growing partner program mechanics: tiering, deal registration, margin models, and enablement.
