Job posts mix these words as if they were synonyms. They are not. If you walk into the wrong seat, you will be measured on work you did not train for.
Business development
BD opens doors. New logos, new categories, sometimes new geos. The week is outbound, first meetings, and a pipeline of conversations. A good BD person can get you in the room. They are not automatically the person who will scope an integration or keep a book warm for two years.
If the posting says “hunt new partners” and never mentions a marketplace, a QBR, or an owner on the product side, it is BD wearing a partnerships hat.
Partner manager (technology)
You own a book after the door is open. Relationship, commercial motion, shipped workflow. You say no. You write scope. You enable a seller. You watch adoption. The hunter work still happens, but it is not the whole job.
Alliances / ISV / ecosystem on a platform
You live inside someone else’s program: AppExchange, HubSpot, a cloud marketplace, a Shopify app review. The week is tiers, certifications, deal registration, and a partner manager at the platform who has two hundred other ISVs. You learn distribution machinery. You rarely own the full motion the way a startup partner manager does.
How to read a posting
Circle three words: hunt, farm, program. Hunt is BD. Farm is partner management. Program is alliances. A posting that wants all three in year one is a company that has not designed the seat. You can still take it. Go in knowing you will have to pick which muscle you build first.
What to say in the interview
“I can hunt, but my year-one plan is to ship two live integrations and a referral motion, not to collect thirty logos.” If they flinch, they wanted a conference circuit. If they lean in, you found a real partnerships seat.