Staff Customer Success Manager

<p><strong>About Buildkite</strong></p> <p>At Buildkite, we're on a mission to unblock every developer on the planet by helping developers create faster, test smarter, and innovate beyond limits. Our Scale-Out Delivery Platform is trusted by some of tech's most innovative companies — including Airbnb, Block, Canva, Elastic, Twilio, and Uber. We've rethought how CI/CD should work, building a platform that's fast, reliable, secure, and scales to meet the needs of high-growth tech companies.</p> <p><strong>Role Description</strong></p> <p>The Staff Customer Success Manager is a senior individual contributor who operates as both a strategic owner of Buildkite's most complex and strategically critical Enterprise customers AND a leader within the Customer Success function. You set the bar for what excellence looks like in the role, develop the team through mentorship and playbook contribution, and drive cross-functional initiatives that shape how Buildkite delivers post-sale value at scale.</p> <p>This is a senior IC role with significant function-level responsibility. You operate on the most strategic accounts — typically multi-org, multi-business-unit, multi-million ARR — and your impact extends beyond your own book to the operating model, the team, and Buildkite's external CS posture. We're looking for someone who has done this work before at a top-tier B2B SaaS company and wants to bring that experience to a founding-team environment where their judgment shapes how the function scales. This is an Individual Contributor position.</p> <p><strong>Your Impact</strong></p> <p><em><strong>Strategic Account Leadership</strong></em></p> <ul> <li><strong>Account Ownership: </strong>Own end-to-end relationships on Buildkite's most strategic accounts — multi-org, multi-BU, and reference-tier customers with significant ARR concentration — as the customer's single accountable partner at Buildkite.</li> <li><strong>Value Realization: </strong>Drive measurable business outcomes from the Buildkite investment at the scale and complexity that Buildkite's most strategic accounts require — aligning each account's success plan to enterprise-wide engineering and business goals.</li> <li><strong>Internal Orchestration: </strong>Mobilize the full Buildkite organization — Account Executives, Technical Account Managers, Solutions, Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Executive Leadership — across complex multi-stakeholder accounts so the customer experiences one cohesive Buildkite.</li> <li><strong>Cadence Design: </strong>Right-size engagement on accounts where every stakeholder is senior and every interaction matters — calibrating cadence so the partnership earns its place on the customer's calendar without over-engineering it.</li> <li><strong>Strategic Direction: </strong>Contribute to the strategic direction of the Customer Success function in partnership with the Director of Customer Success — informing how Buildkite covers, supports, and grows its most important customers.</li> </ul> <p><em><strong>Executive Influence and Customer Partnership</strong></em></p> <ul> <li><strong>C-Suite Engagement: </strong>Drive C-suite, CTO, and board-level engagement on customer outcomes and strategic direction — comfortable as the Buildkite executive presence on the account.</li> <li><strong>Business Translation: </strong>Translate platform investment into board-level business outcomes, in the language the customer's executives use with their own leadership and board.</li> <li><strong>Executive Business Reviews: </strong>Lead the EBR cadence with the AE and TAM at the executive tier — bringing the value narrative, customer readiness, and forward-looking strategy that keeps the most strategic partnerships on track.</li> <li><strong>Customer Advocacy: </strong>Amplify the voice of Buildkite's most strategic customers inside Buildkite — ensuring Product, Engineering, and Executive Leadership stay focused on what matters most to the accounts that shape the company's direction.</li> <li><strong>Stakeholder Navigation: </strong>Navigate the most complex internal and customer organizations — driving consensus, surfacing blockers, and aligning stakeholders at every level to the outcomes the partnership depends on.</li> </ul> <p><em><strong>Function Leadership and External Posture</strong></em></p> <ul> <li><strong>Operating Model Ownership: </strong>Set the bar for the function — help define the playbooks, KPIs, success-plan templates, and engagement standards the CS team operates on, and evolve them as the function scales.</li> <li><strong>Mentorship and Team Development: </strong>Mentor and develop CSMs and Sr. CSMs across the team — raise the bar on judgment, executive engagement, and strategic ownership; help future hires ramp to full strategic ownership of their books.</li> <li><strong>Cross-functional Initiatives: </strong>Lead cross-functional initiatives across CS, Product, Sales, and Marketing that improve how Buildkite delivers post-sale value — initiatives that outlast your direct ownership of them.</li> <li><strong>Risk, Renewal, and Expansion Standard: </strong>Set the standard for risk identification, renewal strategy, and expansion sourcing across the team — informing how every CSM on the team thinks about the commercial health of their book.</li> </ul> <p><strong>You're a Strong Fit if You Have</strong></p> <ul> <li>8+ years in Customer Success, Strategic Account Management, or post-sale strategic relationship roles at top-tier B2B SaaS companies — with at least 3 years operating at the Sr. CSM level or equivalent</li> <li>A track record of owning Buildkite-scale strategic customer relationships — multi-million ARR, complex multi-stakeholder, multi-BU — as the person accountable for value, retention, and expansion</li> <li>Exceptional executive presence and communication — C-suite, CTO, and board-level engagement is comfortable and well-practiced, and you translate technical work into the business outcomes their leadership cares about</li> <li>Demonstrated impact on team and function — you've built playbooks, mentored teams, and driven cross-functional initiatives that outlasted your direct ownership of them</li> <li>Direct experience in CI/CD, DevOps, or developer infrastructure SaaS — deep domain expertise and strong technical fluency, without trying to be the technical expert</li> <li>Strong commercial fluency — you understand pricing, packaging, and the economics of named-account coverage, and you operate effectively alongside AEs and Renewals</li> <li>Comfort operating as both an IC and a function-leader on the same day — owning a customer relationship in the morning and reshaping the operating model in the afternoon</li> </ul> <p><strong>Nice to Have</strong></p> <ul> <li>Hands-on familiarity with Buildkite or comparable CI/CD platforms (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Harness, GitLab CI) — enough to navigate a customer's CI/CD architecture conversation without needing translation</li> <li>Player/coach experience — formal or informal team leadership in an IC capacity, including line-of-sight responsibility for the development of less-senior CSMs</li> <li>Experience leading or shaping a CS function from an early stage at a developer-infrastructure or B2B SaaS company — not just executing within an established one</li> <li>Experience partnering with Technical Account Managers or Solutions Architects in a model where the technical and relationship roles are explicitly separated</li> <li>Familiarity with CS platforms (Vitally, Catalyst, Gainsight, Totango, or similar) and modern revenue stacks (Salesforce, Avoma, ChartMogul, or equivalent)</li> </ul> <p><strong>Why You'll Love Working at Buildkite</strong></p> <ul> <li>Remote-first culture and support for work-life balance</li> <li>Competitive compensation and benefits package</li> <li>Meaningful work alongside some of the most innovative engineering teams in tech</li> <li>Opportunities for professional growth, learning, and career development</li> <li>A supportive, collaborative team culture where your ideas and expertise matter</li> </ul> <p>Compensation — $160–170K</p><div class="content-conclusion"><h3><strong>🌈 Equal Opportunity Employer</strong></h3> <p>At Buildkite, we value diversity and celebrate all types of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. We’re dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment and providing reasonable accommodations throughout our recruitment process.</p> <p>If you need any accommodations or support during the application or interview process, please reach out to us at accommodations@buildkite.com.</p></div>