Sr. Manager/Director, Technical Success Management

Chainguard is the secure foundation for software development and deployment. By providing guarded open source software, built from source and updated continuously, Chainguard helps organizations eliminate threats in their software supply chains.

Founded by the industry's leading experts on open source software, security and cloud native development, Chainguard has built the largest library of open source software that is secure by default. 

Chainguard’s mission is to be the safe source for open source.

The role, in a nutshell:

The Director of Technical Success Management (TSM) will report to the VP of Customer Success, working collaboratively to achieve the company's goals and enhance customer success initiatives.

As a key leadership role within the Customer Success organization, the Director of TSM will partner closely with other TSM leaders in building and shaping the function. The successful candidate will demonstrate strong people management skills, experience building out a TSM function (i.e. customer engagement, account management and retention strategies), and a mindset of driving operational excellence and scale. 

What you’ll do:

• Leadership and People Management:
• Build, lead and mentor a team of TSMs, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture.
• Provide guidance and support for career development, performance management, and skill enhancement within the team.
• Strategic Planning, Building and Execution:
• Collaborate with the VP of Customer Success and other TSM leaders to develop and execute the overall strategy for the TSM function.
• Drive the creation of customer engagement strategies to meet adoption, retention, and growth targets.
• Develop processes in the lens of value and customer experience. Institute scale and automation in order to accomplish more with less over time.
• Customer Management:
• Ensure a thorough grasp of adoption metrics across the customer base and collaborate with TSMs to devise actionable plans for mitigating churn risk and promoting account expansion.
• Conduct account deep dives to drive adoption and account level objectives.
• Stay informed about escalated accounts, take charge in resolving issues, offer leadership support to the team and customers as needed, and provide regular updates to senior leadership.
• Client Engagement and Advocacy:
• Work closely with customers to understand their unique requirements and challenges.
• Build strong client relationships at the Executive level to understand their workflow, prioritize Chainguard engagements, drive customer satisfaction and position account growth.
• Serve as the voice of the customer within the organization, providing insights and feedback to drive product improvements and innovations
• Retention and Growth:
• Collaborate with GTM, Product, and Engineering teams to drive adoption, customer retention, and growth.
• Utilize insights from customer adoption data to develop precise renewal forecasts. Collaborate closely with the sales team to generate a weekly forecast aggregation, projecting at least six months into the future. 
• Continuous Improvement:
• Implement and refine operational processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness within the TSM team and engagement model.
• Monitor industry trends and best practices to stay ahead of market demands.

What we're looking for:

• At least 5+ years of proven experience in a leadership role, with a strong background in people management.
• Experience in Cybersecurity, DevOps, or an adjacent space
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field; advanced degree preferred.
• Demonstrated success in building and scaling TSM functions.
• In-depth knowledge of project management methodologies and practices.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage with both internal teams and external clients and executive level personas
• We are remote friendly, but this role needs to be based in the United States

  Base Salary Range$190,000—$210,000 USD

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

We are customer obsessed - We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.

We have a bias for intentional action - We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.

We don’t take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) - We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.

We trust each other and assume good intentions - We’re trans