Your first hire in Europe should follow the motion you have chosen. If partners will carry the market, hire a channel manager. If direct enterprise deals are the plan and they stall in technical evaluation, hire a sales engineer. Hire a country manager when there is already pipeline to run: open deals, active partners and a price list in euros. A country manager hired into an empty market spends the first year building the things a channel manager or a sales engineer would have built faster, and is judged on revenue the whole time.
start with what limits your growth
The title “country manager” sounds like the obvious first step, because it maps onto how you would open an office. The better question is what stops the next deal in Europe from closing. For most security vendors entering the region it is one of two things: nobody local is carrying the product to customers, or customers want technical proof that nobody local can run.
Those two constraints point to different people. Plot your situation on two questions: who will carry most deals, your own sellers or partners, and how much technical proof a typical deal needs before anyone signs.
What limits growth decides the first hire
technical proof each deal needs →
share of deals carried by partners →
If you are unsure which side you are on, the reason is often that you are running the home-market playbook and expecting it to work unchanged. The guide on why the US volume playbook breaks in Europe covers what changes, and the country-by-country view of entering CEE helps you decide where the first person sits.
what each role can and cannot do alone
Each of the three roles can move one constraint on its own and depends on someone else for the rest. Write this down before you open the search, because it decides what support the hire needs from headquarters.
| role | can do alone | cannot do alone | judge it by |
|---|---|---|---|
| channel manager | recruit and activate partners, run deal registration, train partner sellers, build a joint plan with the distributor | run technical evaluations, close large direct deals, change pricing or product | partners with a first registered deal, partner-sourced pipeline |
| sales engineer | run demos and POCs in the local time zone and language, answer security questionnaires, train partner engineers | generate pipeline, manage partners commercially, negotiate | POCs started with signed success criteria, technical wins, time to decision |
| country manager | run open deals, represent the company to large customers and partners, hire the next people | build a channel and run evaluations at the same time, without support | qualified pipeline, then revenue once the market is built |
The country manager row carries the most risk as a first hire. You hire someone senior, give them a revenue number for a market with no partners and no technical capacity, and they become a channel manager, a sales engineer and a recruiter at once. Senior people can do that for a while. They rarely do all three well.
what has to exist before the hire
A first hire spends the first months on whatever is missing from this list. Each gap you close beforehand is a month of selling you get back.
- Positioning for Europe. Which problem you solve for a European buyer, which regulation sits around it, which competitors are already local. A translated US deck is a starting point at best.
- A partner or a distributor, at least in conversation. A channel manager can recruit resellers, but signing the first distributor usually needs the founder or CRO. The arithmetic of one distributor or two in a mid-sized market is worth doing before the hire, since it shapes the job.
- A price list in EUR, with partner discounts and payment terms decided. A local hire who has to ask headquarters for every quote loses deals to slower vendors with faster answers.
- A support model. Who answers a ticket at 9:00 in Warsaw, in which language, and what the partner handles at first line.
- Contract paper. Customer terms and a that European procurement will accept without a month of redlines.
If these are missing and you hire anyway, write them into the first 90 days of the job description, and lower the revenue expectation for that period accordingly.
the first two or three hires, in order
The sequence follows the same logic as the first hire. In a partner-led motion, a typical order is channel manager, then a sales engineer once partner POCs exceed what the distributor’s presales can cover, then a second channel manager for a new country or a role. In a direct motion, it is sales engineer, then a seller, then a country manager once there are enough deals that someone has to run them.
The plan below is illustrative, for a partner-led entry into one market. Your months will differ; the order is the point.
An illustrative first year, partner-led
For a direct motion, swap the first two rows: the sales engineer comes first, and the gate for the next hire is the number of evaluations that end in a decision. The guide on running a security POC that ends in a decision describes what that engineer’s work should look like.
borrowed capacity before headcount
You do not have to hire every capability on the payroll. Three options are common in the channel and worth pricing against a hire:
- Distributor presales. Many value-added distributors employ engineers who run demos and POCs for the lines they carry. Ask how many engineers will be trained on your product, by name, and how their time is split across other vendors.
- A fractional channel lead. An experienced channel person for a few days a month can design the programme, sign the first partners and hand over to a full-time hire. The risk is divided attention and ownership that leaves with them, so put deliverables and a handover date in the contract.
- Partner-run evaluations. A trained partner engineer can run a with your support from a distance.
Borrowed capacity buys time to learn what the market needs. It does not build loyalty to your product, and a distributor engineer serving many vendors will favour the ones that sell. Plan the point at which you replace it with your own person.
how to measure the first 6 to 12 months
A full quota on day one measures a market that nobody has built yet. In the first six to twelve months, measure the leading indicators each role controls, and move to revenue targets as the pipeline matures.
- Channel manager: partners signed, partners with a first registered deal within a set window, partner engineers certified, . The guide on activating partners in the first 90 days after signature defines activation as a commercial event, which is the measure to use.
- Sales engineer: POCs started with the buyer signed, POCs that reached a decision, time from first demo to decision.
- Country manager: qualified pipeline with a named buyer and budget, deals at each stage, partner involvement in those deals.
Agree the switch date from leading indicators to revenue at the hire, in writing. Variable pay should follow the same measures; paying a channel team without a war with direct sales covers the mix and credit rules.
the employment route
Employment law in Europe is national, so the route depends on where the person sits. The following is general information as of November 2026, not legal or tax advice.
Under EU social security coordination, as the European Commission puts it, an employed person is subject to the legislation of the country where they actually work, and it does not matter where the employer is based. Only one country’s legislation applies at a time. A German-based hire on your US payroll is still covered by German social security. That leaves three practical routes.
An employer of record. A provider employs the person locally on your behalf and runs payroll and contributions, while you direct the work. It is the usual route for a first hire without an entity. The employee has full local rights, so exits are no faster. Some countries add rules: in Germany, lending employees to a third party requires a permit under section 1 of the Temporary Agency Work Act (AÜG), which also limits an assignment to the same client to 18 consecutive months. Ask counsel how this applies to an employer of record in your target country.
A local entity. More set-up and running cost, full control of contracts and pay rules. It makes sense once a team forms in one country.
A contractor, including a B2B contract in Poland. Common for senior sales and technical roles in Poland, and lawful when the relationship is genuinely independent. Article 22 of the Polish Labour Code defines employment as work under the employer’s direction, at a place and time it sets, for pay, and states that such work is employment whatever the contract is called. Replacing an employment contract with a civil law contract under those conditions is not permitted. Since 8 July 2026, under the act of 11 March 2026 (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 473), a district labour inspector can first instruct a business to fix such a relationship and, if it does not, issue a decision establishing that an employment relationship exists. The same act raised the fine for concluding a civil law contract where an employment contract is required to between PLN 2,000 and PLN 60,000, and gives businesses that convert such contracts voluntarily within 12 months of 8 July 2026 an exemption from that liability. A full-time seller with a manager, an assigned quota and fixed meetings looks like an employee on most of these tests.
One more question belongs with a tax adviser. A local person who habitually concludes contracts, or plays the principal role leading to contracts your company signs without material change, can create a taxable presence for your company in that country under the dependent agent rule of the 2017 OECD Model Tax Convention, as described in HMRC’s international manual. A senior country manager with signing authority is the role most exposed.
the next hire
When the first person has hit the leading indicators, the next hire follows the next constraint, and you can measure it this time. Look at where deals in Europe now stall: partners waiting for technical support, evaluations waiting for a commercial owner, or pipeline nobody has time to run. Hire for that, and keep the employment route on the same checklist.
glossary
data processing agreement
The contract terms that govern how a supplier processes personal data for the buyer. If personal data reaches a vendor-hosted POC environment, the vendor is probably a processor under GDPR Article 28 and the terms need signing before the data moves. In practice the slowest part of a security review is often negotiating these terms with procurement and legal, so pre-negotiated terms most customers accept unchanged save the most time.
read more: the security review is a second evaluation. start it with the POCglossary
glossary
through-partner marketing
Marketing the vendor produces that runs under the partner's brand or a co-brand to the partner's own audience, often executed by the vendor, the distributor or an agency. It exists because most partners lack the capacity to market a new line themselves. The guide measures it by accepted leads, registered deals and closed revenue per campaign and per partner.
read more: content your channel partners will actually sendglossary
glossary
POC
A time-boxed evaluation in the buyer's environment that answers whether the product does the job. A passed POC and a buying decision are two different layers, so the guide agrees to one only when the doubt can't be resolved more cheaply, a decision date exists and the buyer commits its own people. Public guidance clusters around two to eight weeks; GitLab designs its evaluations around 30 days with a check at day 15.
read more: how to run a security POC that ends in a decisionglossary
glossary
partner-sourced revenue
Revenue from deals the partner found and brought to you, usually proven by a deal registration. In the 2022 State of Partner Ops and Programs survey by HubSpot, Canalys and Partnership Leaders, 81.1% of organisations used it as a partner KPI. It is easy to defend and undervalues partners that work deals they did not find, so record each deal's origin once, at creation, and lock it.
read more: channel metrics that tell you something: sourced, influenced and the partner health scoreglossary
glossary
success criteria
Written statements of what a POC must show for the buyer to proceed. Good ones are few and measurable, each with a baseline, a target and an evidence source, sorted into mandatory, weighted and observed, and approved before the POC starts by the people who decide. The guide adds one sentence on what success leads to, and a buyer's refusal to sign it is information you get before spending engineering time.
read more: how to run a security POC that ends in a decisionglossary
questions
Should a security vendor's first hire in Europe be a country manager?
Usually only when there is already pipeline to run. A country manager without partners, a price list in euros or open deals spends the first year building those alone. If partners will carry the market, a channel manager is the better first hire; if direct enterprise deals stall in proof of concept, a sales engineer is.
Can a vendor without a European entity employ someone in Europe?
Yes, through an employer of record, which employs the person locally on your behalf, or by setting up a local entity. Under EU social security coordination an employed person is generally covered by the country where they actually work, wherever the employer is based. Some countries add their own rules, for example Germany's permit regime for temporary agency work. Check the route with local employment counsel.
Is a B2B contract in Poland a safe way to hire a full-time seller?
Only if the relationship is genuinely independent. Article 22 of the Polish Labour Code treats work under direction, at a time and place set by the principal, for pay, as employment whatever the contract is called. Since 8 July 2026 a district labour inspector can issue a decision establishing an employment relationship. This is general information as of November 2026, not legal advice.
sources
- Polish Labour Code, consolidated text, Dz.U. 2025 poz. 277 (Sejm, 2025)
- Act of 11 March 2026 amending the National Labour Inspectorate Act, Dz.U. 2026 poz. 473 (Dziennik Ustaw, 2026)
- European Commission: EU social security coordination, which rules apply to you
- German Federal Ministry of Justice: Temporary Agency Work Act (AÜG), section 1
- HMRC International Manual INTM264510: dependent agent permanent establishment under the OECD model
Security Revenue · every Tuesday
How security vendors build pipeline.
Subscribe and get the Europe Entry Kit: a country selection matrix, a first-hire table and the NIS2 and DORA supplier questions. It comes with the welcome email, together with the other subscriber kits.