Partner Operations & AI Automation Manager

Description

Acquia empowers the world’s most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers, and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions, and help businesses stand out.

Headquartered in the U.S., Acquia is positioned as a market leader by the analyst community and is listed as one of the world’s top software companies by The Software Report. We are Acquia. We are a global company with employees located in more than 30 countries, and we’re building for the future. We want you to be a part of it!

The Partner Operations & AI Automation Manager will play a pivotal role in driving operational excellence and partner program management.  This role requires a strategic thinker with a strong understanding of business processes, cross-functional collaboration, and a proven track record of delivering results in a fast-paced scale-up environment.  The ideal candidate combines strong analytical and process improvement instincts with the technical ability to design, build, and deploy AI-powered workflows, and can clearly articulate problems, requirements, and solutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Partner Operations Manager will organize, plan, and execute across the following areas:

Operations & Process Improvement

• Identify bottlenecks in partner-facing and internal processes; design, document, and implement improvements end-to-end.
• Own the mapping of partner operations processes, lead process improvement projects, and measure impact against efficiency and margin targets.
• Proactively identify opportunities to reduce COGS spend, improve cost traceability, and support contract negotiations with relevant data.
• Own the end-to-end partner journey, mapping touchpoints, removing system friction, and optimizing tools to drive partner satisfaction and engagement.

AI Automation & Agent Development

• Design, build, and deploy AI agents and automated workflows that reduce manual effort across partner operations processes.
• Apply AI tooling (including but not limited to Claude, Gemini, and automation platforms) to high-impact, high-frequency operational tasks, with clear frameworks for prioritization, testing, and iteration.
• Own the implementation of AI/automation frameworks across OEM operations, Partner Journey, and the Partner Portal. 
• Understand and apply AI grounding, prompt design, and output validation to ensure accuracy and reliability of deployed agents. 

Systems Ownership & Technical Fluency

• Own the maintenance, configuration, and optimization of partner operations tools and systems, including Salesforce, Jira, the Partner Portal, Crossbeam, and related platforms.
• Serve as a key contributor in the selection, deployment, and upkeep of tools — including leading evaluation frameworks for new platforms (e.g., Partner Portal rebuild on Drupal PaaS).
• Leverage Salesforce and Jira at a hands-on level: build reports and dashboards, manage workflow logic, and reconcile data across systems to surface actionable insights.
• Pull, clean, and analyze data from multiple systems to answer business questions and support partner program decision-making.

Project Management & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead project planning and execution for high-visibility initiatives including the Partner Portal rebuild, AI/automation rollouts, and partner program enhancements.
• Own project scopes, timelines, and accountability tracking across cross-functional stakeholders — ensuring progress without stalling as priorities shift.
• Partner with the Channel, Salesforce, and Engineering teams to clearly articulate operational needs, requirements, and proposed solutions.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for partner operations tools, managing partner requests and leading partner-facing communications.
• Foster a collaborative, knowledge-sharing culture across the team.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Hands-on experience building and deploying AI agents or automated workflows — not just using AI tools, but designing and implementing them. 
• Deep working knowledge of Salesforce: reports, dashboards, workflow rules, data objects, and cross-system reconciliation.
• Strong organizational and time management skills
• Desire and interest in working in a high-volume office atmosphere
• Ability to multitask and quickly shift focus
• Thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments by independently navigating unstructured data, defining new processes, and adapting to shifting business priorities
• Ability to complete multi-step tasks with a high-level of accuracy
• Excellent team-work, interpersonal, communication, and customer service skills
• Strong work ethic

DESIRED EXPERIENCE

• 5+ plus years working in Business systems management, Sales operations, Process Improvement, Partner Management 
• Proficiency in Jira for project and issue tracking, including workflow configuration and cross-team coordination. 
• Familiarity with Drupal or Drupal PaaS is a strong plus, particularly for candidates who will be contributing to Partner Portal scoping and implementation.
• AI-first driven mindset
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong working knowledge of Google Suite
• Strong working knowledge of Salesforce
• Experience with process improvement initiatives
• Experience working enterprise BI/reporting software such as Domo is a plus.

We are an organization that embraces innovation and the potential of AI to enhance our processes and improve our work. We are always looking for individuals who are open to learning new technologies and collaborating with AI tools to achieve our goals.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation, or ordinance.