Principal, Product and Technology Partnerships

Sonar • San Francisco, CA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Sonar helps prevent code quality and code security issues from reaching production, amplifies developers' productivity in concert with AI assistants, and improves the developer experience with streamlined workflows. Sonar analyzes all code, regardless of who writes it — your internal team, genAI, or third parties — resulting in more secure, reliable, and maintainable applications. Rooted in the open source community, Sonar’s solutions support over 30 programming languages, frameworks, and infrastructure technologies. Today, Sonar is used by +7M developers and 400K organizations worldwide, including the DoD, Microsoft, NASA, MasterCard, Siemens, and T-Mobile.
We believe in developing great products that are supported by great internal teams and a strong culture. We are highly committed to and obsessed with the company, users, each other, and our open source community. We have high standards and hold each other accountable for acting with positivity, dedication, thoughtfulness, empathy, and passion daily.
We are deliberate with our decisions with high clarity of intention. At the same time, we feel extreme urgency and move forward quickly.
And lastly, we are highly effective and operationally efficient. We operate collectively as One Team to accomplish our goals.
At Sonar, CODE is more than just an acronym – it's a mindset that defines daily operations.
We are seeking a highly strategic and experienced Business Development professional to join Sonar as the Principal, Distribution Tech Partnerships. Reporting directly to the VP of AI and Tech Partnerships, you will spearhead Sonar's efforts in this critical domain, building deep, impactful relationships and forging partnerships with technology partners who are positioned to resell or OEM Sonar’s products. Initial target partners include IBM, Cisco, Dell, ServiceNow, Palo Alto Networks, Salesforce.com, SAP, and Oracle.
Your primary goal will be to establish integration and GTM partnerships that combine Sonar's code quality and code security products with a partner’s related products in order to create innovative solutions that can be marketed to developer and/or engineering management teams within the partner’s established and targeted customer bases. This involves defining partnership structures, negotiating licensing and collaboration agreements, and developing joint go-to-market plans.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in business development, strategic alliances, technology partnerships, or related fields, preferably within the cybersecurity or code security markets.
• Proven track record of successfully defining, negotiating, closing, and managing high-impact, technology-centric partnerships, particularly those with OEM and/or resell GTM motions.
• Particular experience leading complex deal negotiations, including interpreting legal documents and working collaboratively with legal counsel on terms related to co-marketing, co-sell, resale, and OEM business models.
• Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with partners at a technical level, particularly with a strong foundational knowledge of the human and agentic code development ecosystem.
• Proven experience leading (or significantly contributing to) cross-functional teams, including those with Product Management and Engineering, to orchestrate and implement complex partnerships.
• Exceptional communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills, with experience influencing stakeholders at various levels, including senior executives.
• Ability to thrive, lead initiatives, and execute in a fast-paced, rapidly evolving, and often ambiguous technological landscape.

Nice To Haves

• MBA or advanced technical degree (e.g., MSCS, MSEE) preferred.

Responsibilities

• Strategy Development & Execution: Drive the execution of Sonar’s partnership strategy specifically with the identified distribution technology partners, aligning closely with overall company growth objectives.
• Opportunity Identification & Analysis: Identify, evaluate, and prioritize strategic partnership opportunities. Conduct market analyses of the distribution technology partner landscape, and track their efforts to include home grown or partner-based code quality and security solutions within their first party solutions.
• Relationship Building & Management: Build, nurture, and manage strong, long-term relationships with key technical, product, and business leaders at the target companies. Conduct quarterly reviews in conjunction with Sonar’s Sales and Channel Partner organizations.
• Deal Negotiation & Execution: Lead the end-to-end partnership lifecycle with selected technology resell or OEM partners. Define engagement models, draft term sheets, negotiate complex distribution agreements, align key internal stakeholders, and drive integration and GTM deals to closure.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with internal Sonar teams (Product Management, Engineering, Research, Legal, Marketing, Sales, Finance) to align on deal terms and construct plans for integration development, sales team enablement, sales team alignment, and transaction execution.

Benefits

• Flexible comprehensive employee benefit package that is 90% paid by the company.
• We encourage usage of our robust time-off allocations.
• We offer an exciting 401(k) plan that has a 4% match, fully vested on day one of participation.
• Generous discretionary Company Growth Bonus, paid annually.
• Fully paid parking in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas.
• Global workforce with employees in 20+ countries representing 35+ unique nationalities.
• We have an annual kick-off somewhere in the world where we meet to build relationships and goals for the company.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Number of Employees: 251-500 employees