Meet your AWS Partner team

Thinking about expanding your startup through a co-selling motion with AWS? Need a tailored technical solution to help your startup grow? You might be ready to join or engage the Amazon Partner Network (APN), our global community of partners that provides innovative solutions and solves technical challenges for customers! Through AWS Marketplace, you can deploy these AWS Partner solutions in minutes, or, as an AWS Partner, enable customers to deploy your solution.

Let’s meet some folks on our partner team! If you work with a partner or become a partner, these folks will work alongside your AWS Account Team to support your startup’s business needs. The partner team is split into two groups: partner management and partner success. We’ll introduce you to both and provide clarity on each role on the team and how to best use their expertise to achieve your business goals.

Partner management

When you become part of the APN, the partner management team helps with your APN onboarding.

Partner development representatives

Partner development representatives (PDRs) are your primary point of contact on the partner management team. A PDR’s primary goal is to guide your startup through the APN onboarding experience and through the initial phases of your partner journey towards AWS Marketplace.

PDRs are there to facilitate your APN progression and program adoption, provide get-to-market support, funding advice, and references. 

"As a PDR on the startups team, I guide early-stage startups through onboarding activities and programs to help them achieve their goals with the APN. It's an exciting and unique opportunity to work with startups from various industries to help them provide AWS end-customers best-in-class third-party support and solutions." - Leah Yourstone

Partner development managers

After you’ve listed your solution on AWS Marketplace, you’ll meet your partner development manager (PDM). The PDMs help drive the growth of your business by helping you develop go-to-market (GTM) plans and strategy. 

I enjoy being a PDM. It allows me to nurture and strengthen valuable relationships with our partners. It’s fulfilling to be part of our partners' expansion journey beyond their home regions through the APN ecosystem. I often get the chance to work with partners from diverse industries and various solution offerings. It fuels my passion for continuous innovation and growth. - Olivia Chang 

Partner solutions architects

PDR and PDMs work with partner solutions architects (PSAs). PSAs are your technical point of contact. They offer consultations, workshops, AWS Well-Architected Framework reviews, and more to help you build any technical assets you need to support your partner journey.

I love being a PSA. I act as a technical leader and strategic influencer for partners. I get an opportunity to learn about innovative partner solutions, to influence their roadmap, to act as an advocate for the partner, and to act as a liaison between AWS service teams and engineering organizations of partners. It fulfills my curiosity and eagerness learn and know new things and trends. - Chintan Sanghavi 

Partner success

The partner success team works with your startup account team to find the right partner and solution that suits your needs. They also work with the partner management team to provide feedback to partners and alert them of trends that require partner solutions. 

Partner sales managers 

Partner sales managers (PSMs) are your primary point of contact on the partner success team. They’ll help connect you with partners and AWS credit programs to overcome any technical or business blockers.

As a PSM, I get to meet partners of all different shapes and sizes to understand their competencies and capabilities. Being in the Startup segment, I also get to enjoy a front-row seat to some of the most groundbreaking technologies that will inevitably change our world for the better. The PSM role enables me to help those innovative companies get the proper help they need, when they need it most. - Joe Laurino

Partner success solutions architects

PSMs work with partner success solutions architects (PSSAs) to help with partner selection, enablement, and technical validation. 

PSSAs own the technical strategy when it comes to partner engagements, but they work together with account solutions architects to provide technical guidance to customers and ensure you’re following AWS best practices.

As a PSSA, I enjoy talking to our partners to understand their value proposition and what their technical super powers are. I also like talking to our customers to hear what technical challenges they face and in turn explaining how our partners can help them. Building long-term relationships between our customers and partners by bringing in the right partner is something I very much enjoy. - Ben Gardiner

Summary

Together with your AWS account team, the AWS Partner team works with you and your startup to provide innovative solutions, solve technical challenges, deliver value, and grow your business. Become an AWS Partner today to get started on your APN journey or explore partner solutions on AWS Marketplace. 

Want to learn more about your AWS team? Read on to Meet your AWS account team.

The AWS Global Startup program is an invite-only, go-to-market program supporting mid-to-late stage startups that have raised institutional funding, achieved product-market fit, and are ready to scale.

This program offers your startup unique support by assigning PDMs with deep AWS knowledge and startup or business development experience. Get support for your business in three key areas: product development, go-to-market, and co-sell.

Explore success stories and how to get started today!