Senior Partner Sales Manager at Canonical - Remote — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Canonical is one of the most nomad-friendly employers in tech, having operated a fully distributed model since 2004 with 1,200+ staff across 75+ countries. This role is explicitly remote-first with no required office location, making it genuinely compatible with a location-independent lifestyle.
Key considerations for digital nomads:
- Travel requirement: Up to 40% travel — primarily for partner meetings, customer workshops, and executive engagements. This is significant and means you'll need reliable access to airports, not just good Wi-Fi. Budget for this carefully as it shapes your base location choice.
- Timezone flexibility: Working with GSI partners in a specific geographic region means your working hours will likely align with that region. Confirm which region during interviews — EMEA, APAC, or Americas coverage will heavily influence where you can realistically base yourself.
- Team sprints: Two in-person team gatherings per year in various global locations — a nomad-friendly perk that doubles as paid travel.
- Priority Pass included: A standout travel perk for frequent travelers, covering airport lounge access on long-haul company trips.
On the cost-of-living front, Canonical adjusts compensation by location. If based in Lisbon (~$2,200/mo living costs), Medellín (~$1,400/mo), or Chiang Mai (~$1,000/mo), your purchasing power would be strong relative to a senior tech sales salary. The $2,000/year L&D budget can also cover coworking memberships in many countries.
Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.
The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.
Global System Integrators (GSI) play a crucial role in Canonical growth plans in the coming 3 years. We are hiring a Senior Partner Sales Manager to work closely with Canonical GSI partners throughout their sales cycles and across their sales organizations to facilitate Ubuntu based solutions and opportunities, as well as help GSI build long term digital transformation platforms with Ubuntu stacks and services.
Working with the Partner Sales Director in their geographic region, the Senior Partner Sales Manager will be responsible for building trusted relationships with partners, increasing Canonical market share and attach rate, evangelizing about the partnership and leading all business interactions from engineers to CxO level. They will often run customer workshops focused on particular initiatives at that customer, attend sales events, give public presentations and participate in executive engagements as coordinated by the Senior Director.
The Role Entails
- Build strategic relationships with partners at all levels, and stickiness with Ubuntu technology
- Deep understanding of Linux and cloud software ecosystem, and open source selling models
- Negotiate contracts and commercial business terms
- Deep understanding of partner organizations and sales models, in particular with Global System Integrators
- Work closely with marketing, sales engineering and product management to deliver on targets, objectives and provide a voice of the partner
- Lead executive interlocks between partners and Canonical leadership team
- Ability to travel — sometimes internationally — up to 40% of the time
What We Are Looking For in You
- Extensive experience in alliance or indirect sales management roles
- Extensive experience with OpenStack, virtualization, containers and other Cloud technologies
- Autonomous, disciplined, hands-on, get-it-done mentality
- Ability to capture customer requirements, evaluate gaps, identify and create opportunities
- Passionate about Ubuntu products and mission
- Comfortable in fast-paced and high pressure environments with ambitious achievement goals
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
What We Offer Colleagues
We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs to meet local needs and ensure fairness globally.
- Distributed work environment with twice-yearly team sprints in person
- Personal learning and development budget of USD 2,000 per year
- Annual compensation review
- Recognition rewards
- Annual holiday leave
- Maternity and paternity leave
- Team Member Assistance Program & Wellness Platform
- Opportunity to travel to new locations to meet colleagues
- Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events
About Canonical
Canonical is a pioneering tech firm at the forefront of the global move to open source. As the company that publishes Ubuntu, one of the most important open-source projects and the platform for AI, IoT, and the cloud, we are changing the world of software. We recruit on a global basis and set a very high standard for people joining the company. We expect excellence; in order to succeed, we need to be the best at what we do. Most colleagues at Canonical have worked from home since our inception in 2004. Working here is a step into the future and will challenge you to think differently, work smarter, learn new skills, and raise your game.
Canonical is an equal opportunity employer
We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and background create a better work environment and better products. Whatever your identity, we will give your application fair consideration.
Frequently Asked Questions
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