A good interview for this role feels like a working session. Bring work.
What to bring
A one-pager PDF. A scored list of five hypothetical partners for their product (you can build this from their site and their marketplace in an evening). A story of a no. A story of a ship.
If you have never held the title, use a pairing from a product you use. Be honest that it is a sample. Honesty plus a sharp artifact beats fake “I ran global alliances.”
Questions they should ask you
Which three partners would you start with, and which would you refuse. How would you get the first meeting. What does a week look like. How would you work with product when they say no. How do you want to be measured in two quarters.
If they only ask “are you a people person,” they do not understand the seat. You can still take the job if the CEO does. Go in with your own metrics.
Questions you ask
Who owns the integration backlog. How many engineering weeks exist for partners this quarter. What happened to the last partnership that died. Whether “partner manager” reports into sales, product, or the CEO. Each answer tells you if you can ship.
Take-home case
They may ask you to draft a one-pager or a 90-day plan. Keep it short. One workflow, one motion, one ship, a kill list. If you write a 15-page ecosystem vision, you have failed the test they did not know they were running.