Partner Manager
Location:
- Hybrid - San Francisco, CA
About the Role:
AI platforms are now prime targets for fraud: stolen API keys and token theft, distillation attacks, fake signups that drain free credits, and promo and referral abuse. Sardine already protects 450+ institutions, including Coinbase, Chime, and Nubank, from bots and AI-driven fraud, and we’ve launched products built for this market, including AI token fraud detection. The window to lead this category is short, and this role is one of Sardine’s top priority for our organization.
As the Partner Manager in San Francisco, you’ll report to our Global Head of Partnerships and lead Sardine’s push into the AI ecosystem: neoclouds, hyperscalers, AI gateways, inference providers, frontier model labs and the AI-native companies building on them. This is a quota-carrying role where you’ll sell Sardine’s fraud and abuse protection to these platforms, then turn the strongest of them into partners that embed, resell or refer Sardine to their own customers.
We’re especially interested in people who have experience selling at a hyperscaler, ideally to financial services companies, and now want to do the reverse: sell fraud protection built for banks and fintechs to cloud and AI platforms.
Based in the San Francisco Bay area, you’ll also be Sardine’s go-to person to represent us at local AI and infrastructure events and will work directly with our CEO on founder-level relationships.
What You’ll Be Doing:
- Drive revenue: Own a quota and a portfolio of AI ecosystem accounts and partners, closing direct and partner-sourced deals alongside Sardine’s sales team
- Sell into the AI ecosystem: Win neoclouds, AI gateways, inference providers and AI-native apps as customers for token fraud, API key abuse, distillation, signup and promo abuse, payment fraud and KYB/KYC
- Turn customers into channels: Build sell-through, embedded and referral motions so platforms bring Sardine to the developers and businesses that build on them
- Build the hyperscaler motion: Develop co-sell and cloud marketplace relationships with hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc.
- Generate demand: Run joint campaigns with Marketing and BDRs against target AI accounts, and equip partner and Sardine teams to pitch and demo our AI fraud products
- Inform the roadmap: Share fraud patterns, product gaps and pricing signals from AI platforms with Product and leadership to shape our AI fraud roadmap
- Collaborate cross-functionally: Work with Product, Sales Engineering, Marketing and Sales to scope POCs, integrations and embedded deployments
- Support the wider partner program: Qualify inbound partner opportunities and work alongside the rest of the partnerships team
- Represent Sardine in SF: Attend Bay Area AI and infrastructure events and executive meetings and own the follow-up
What You’ll Need:
- 8+ years in sales, partnerships or business development in cloud, B2B software or SaaS, with a record of consistently exceeding quota
- Highly preferred: Hyperscaler sales experience (ex. AWS, Azure, GCP), ideally selling into financial services or fintech, including cloud marketplaces and co-sell programs
- Highly preferred: Background in fraud, security, identity or trust & safety software
- Working knowledge of the AI infrastructure ecosystem: how neoclouds, inference providers, AI gateways and model labs make money, and where they are exposed to fraud and abuse
- Experience closing direct deals and building partner-sourced revenue across platform, reseller and referral relationships
- Executive presence with founders, CISOs and Trust & Safety leaders, and the ability to build long-term relationships
- Hands-on experience with CRM/Salesforce, reporting and analytics
- Strong project management, communication and strategic thinking, with the ability to work in virtual, matrixed teams
- Avid user of agentic AI tools to optimize performance, with a lifetime learning mindset
- Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an existing network in the AI and cloud ecosystem