Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships

Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. We’re re-defining e-commerce by blending community, shopping, and entertainment into a community just for you. As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values. With hubs in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, and Poland, we’re building the future of online marketplaces –together.

From fashion, beauty, and electronics to collectibles like trading cards, comic books, and even live plants, our live auctions have something for everyone.

And we’re just getting started! As one of the fastest growing marketplaces, we’re looking for bold, forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business, and bring people together through commerce.

The Strategic Partnerships team builds deep, long-term relationships with Whatnot sellers—guiding them to scale efficiently, elevate buyer experience, and innovate on the platform.

This role sits at the intersection of partnership management, category strategy, and go-to-market execution. You’ll partner closely with your Category Lead, Marketing, Trust & Safety, and Product teams to turn seller insights into action and ensure your team delivers exceptional results for sellers and buyers.

As a Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships, you will lead a team of Strategic Partner Managers while managing a targeted portfolio of high-impact sellers. You will serve as a trusted advisor and category expert, combining analytical rigor, operational excellence, and strong business judgment to accelerate seller growth and unlock category-level opportunities.

• Lead and develop a high-performing team. Attract, coach, and empower a team of Strategic Partner Managers, setting clear expectations and fostering a culture of ownership, urgency, and category expertise.

  • Develop your team’s capabilities across relationship management, account strategy, commercial thinking, and seller coaching.

  • Build systems and mechanisms that create accountability and drive consistent, high-quality execution.

• Drive strategic insights and high-judgment decision making. Build strong, data-backed perspectives on category health, seller performance, and growth opportunities to influence your team’s priorities and direction.

  • Make informed tradeoffs that balance seller success, buyer experience, and Whatnot’s business impact.

  • Anticipate emerging trends, category risks, and new opportunities to ensure sellers remain competitive and prepared.

• Build deep, trusted seller partnerships. Serve as a strategic advisor to top sellers, understanding their businesses, barriers to growth, and long-term objectives.

  • Provide executive-level coaching to support sustainable growth and improve buyer experience.

  • Advocate for seller needs internally, translating insights into clear business impact to influence company-wide decisions.

• Develop category expertise and generate actionable insights. Become a subject matter expert on your category’s dynamics, top sellers, platform behaviors, and competitive landscape.

  • Identify whitespace opportunities, category risks, and strategic bets that shape cross-functional priorities.

  • Partner with your Category Lead to influence category strategy, marketing activations, product requirements, and policy updates.

• Lead cross-functional impact and operational excellence. Drive high-quality, high-velocity execution on seller growth plans, team initiatives, and company-wide projects.

  • Lead complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives by creating clarity, removing blockers, and driving accountability.

  • Build and refine operational systems, processes, and playbooks that enable scalability and consistent seller outcomes.

We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our San Francisco, New York City, or Los Angeles hubs.

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here.

As our next Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships, you should have 8+ years of experience in sales, account management, partnerships, or creator/seller success roles within ecommerce, marketplaces, or creator platforms, plus:

• You are an experienced, high-judgment leader with a passion for seller success, operational rigor, and building exceptional teams.

• 3+ years managing and developing teams.

• Proven experience scaling and maturing Account Management or Partnerships functions.

• Proficiency with Salesforce, Airtable, Sigma, and other tools used for account and pipeline management.

• Strong analytical thinking, business judgment, and ability to craft compelling, data-backed recommendations.

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills; able to influence cross-functionally and navigate ambiguity.

• Demonstrated ability to lead multiple projects concurrently and drive high-velocity execution.
  

Nice to Have

• Experience as a Whatnot seller or entrepreneur.

• Passion for creator communities or deep knowledge of Whatnot’s core categories (e.g., sports cards, vintage apparel, collectibles).

• Experience buying or selling on online marketplaces.

• Generous Holiday and Time off Policy

• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision

• Work From Home Support

  • Home office setup allowance

  • Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet

• Care benefits

  • Monthly allowance for wellness

  • Annual allowance towards Childcare

  • Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses

• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally

• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app

  • All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).

• Parental Leave

  • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.