Federal Partnerships Manager

We are an applied AI lab building end-to-end software agents.

We're the makers of Devin, the first AI software engineer, and Windsurf, the AI-native IDE. Together, they represent our vision for collaborative AI teammates that enable engineers to focus on more interesting problems and empower teams to strive for more ambitious goals.

Our team is small and talent-dense. Among our founding team, we have world-class competitive programmers, former founders, and leaders from companies at the cutting edge of AI including Scale AI, Palantir, Cursor, Waymo, Tesla, Lunchclub, Modal, Google DeepMind, and Nuro.

Building Devin and Windsurf is just the first step—our hardest challenges still lie ahead. If you’re excited to solve some of the world’s biggest problems and build AI that can reason on real-world tasks, apply to join us.

About the Role

As a Federal Partnerships Manager at Cognition, you will own and scale our partner-led motion across key federal resellers and strategic partners, including Carahsoft, WWT, and hyperscalers such as AWS. Your mandate is to drive measurable partner-sourced pipeline and bookings by building repeatable operating cadence, enabling partner sellers, and holding partners accountable to outcomes.

This role is execution-heavy and operator-driven. You will spend your time in the mechanics. Joint account planning, pipeline inspection, partner enablement, deal registration, incentives, and escalation. You will work closely with Federal AEs, Solutions Engineering, and Marketing to create leverage through the channel and win in competitive federal environments.

• Own the federal partner portfolio and deliver partner-sourced pipeline and bookings targets across priority resellers and alliances

• Build and run a weekly operating cadence with partners: pipeline reviews, joint account planning, QBRs, and executive touchpoints

• Drive seller activation, deal progression, and conversion

• Develop and execute co-sell motions with Federal AEs and partner sellers, including rules of engagement, lead flow, deal registration, and escalation paths

• Design and deliver partner enablement that makes partner sellers productive quickly: pitch, discovery, demo path, objections, battlecards, and training

• Identify the right partner programs, incentives, and MDF motions.

• Represent Cognition in partner executive forums and field engagements, ensuring high-quality relationships and consistent performance expectations

Requirements for the role:

• Demonstrated experience owning federal channel partnerships, alliances, or partner-led revenue motions

• Proven track record driving measurable partner-sourced pipeline and bookings, not just relationship management

• Deep fluency in federal channel and procurement mechanics. Prime vs reseller dynamics, deal registration, incentives, and contract vehicles

• Strong operating rigor. Ability to run cadence, implement scorecards, enforce accountability, and build repeatable processes

• High-quality executive communication and presence with partner leadership and internal stakeholders

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with high expectations and measurable outcomes

You might excel if you…

• have scaled partner-led GTM in federal markets through the largest Federal government resellers and at least one hyperscaler alliance

• Have a technical background

• enjoy pushing for performance with clear asks while maintaining strong long-term relationships
  thrive in the details of channel execution. Pipeline hygiene, rules of engagement, incentives, and deal progression