Director, Cloud Partnerships

We are seeking a dynamic, strategic, and results-driven Director, Cloud Partnerships to lead our global hyperscaler alliance strategy. In this high-impact role, you will own the end-to-end relationship, go-to-market (GTM) execution, and revenue generation with our Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) , Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). You will build out each partnership to grow consumption on their clouds, Marketplace transaction revenue and volume, co-sell execution, and co-innovation with their product teams. This is a player-coach role: you will drive strategy and execution hands-on while growing the team, eventually hiring dedicated alliance leaders to cover each cloud provider individually.

Reporting to the VP of Strategic Partnerships, you will be the driving force behind aligning Couchbase Capella with the cloud ecosystems to accelerate co-sell motions, maximize cloud marketplace adoption, and achieve mutual ARR growth.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Alliance Ownership (AWS, Microsoft Azure & GCP)

• Drive GTM Strategy Across All Three Clouds: Act as the primary contact and operational point of contact for AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP. Develop and execute a comprehensive global alliance business plan for each provider designed to accelerate Couchbase Capella adoption and grow consumption on their clouds.
• Executive Partner Relationships: Build out executive relationships within each provider’s partner organization — spanning co-sell, partner programs, and marketplace teams — to secure sponsorship, funding, and preferred-partner positioning.
• Product Co-Innovation & Integrations: Build relationships with and lead efforts on product innovation and integrations alongside each provider’s product and engineering teams, positioning Couchbase Capella data platform and AI Data plane on every cloud.
• Sales & Marketing Collaboration: Build relationships across each provider’s sales and marketing organizations to expand co-sell and collaboration in the field, applying an industry lens to joint account targeting and vertical GTM plays.

Marketplace, Programs & Team Growth

• Marketplace & Program Optimization: Own the commercial strategy for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Marketplace listings — growing Marketplace transaction revenue and volume, ensuring friction-free procurement, and leveraging customer cloud commitments (AWS EDP, Microsoft MACC, GCP commit agreements). Maximize Couchbase’s participation in each provider’s key programs (e.g., AWS ISV Accelerate and Marketplace CPPO, Microsoft ISV Success and Azure IP Co-Sell, Google Cloud Partner Advantage).
• Player-Coach Team Building: Operate hands-on as an individual contributor while building the function — grow the team over time and hire dedicated alliance leaders to cover each cloud provider individually.

Revenue, Pipeline & GTM Execution

• Co-Sell Pipeline Generation: Partner with Couchbase Field Sales, Inside Sales, and Marketing to drive cloud-sourced and cloud-accelerated ARR pipeline through each provider’s co-sell motion and partner programs — registering and progressing opportunities via AWS ACE, Microsoft Partner Center (Azure IP Co-Sell), and Google Cloud Partner Advantage co-sell.
• Industry Sales Team Alignment: Work directly with each provider’s industry and vertical sales teams to build joint account plans and land partner-sourced revenue. Educate and equip Couchbase regional sales teams on how to effectively "win together" with AWS, Azure, and GCP field reps and how to leverage each provider’s co-sell incentives and funding programs.
• Joint Marketing & Events: Collaborate with Partner Marketing to execute joint marketing plans including demand-generation campaigns, executive sponsorships, and major partner events (e.g., AWS re:Invent, Microsoft Ignite, Google Cloud Next).

Candidate "DNA" (The Requirements)

• Experience: 8+ years of experience in cloud alliances, business development, or partner management within the enterprise SaaS, ISV, or database technology sector.
• CSP/Hyperscaler Expertise: Deep, verified track record navigating Cloud Solution Provider ecosystems, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP including their partner organizations, co-sell programs, and marketplaces.
• Proven ARR Results: A history of successfully building programs and scaling cloud marketplace co-sell motions that delivered measurable multi-million-dollar ARR impact.
• Domain Literacy: Foundational knowledge of modern cloud data architecture, NoSQL databases, cloud infrastructure, and the emerging GenAI landscape (e.g., Vector Databases, RAG architectures).
• Influence & Negotiation: Strong executive presence with the ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority and negotiate complex cloud commercial agreements.
• Bridge Builder: Proven ability to build bridges between executives across sales, marketing, product, engineering, and partner teams — both inside Couchbase and within each cloud provider — to align priorities and drive joint outcomes.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, or a related field (MBA preferred, but equivalent real-world execution takes precedence).