Customer Success Manager

Buildkite is on a mission to unblock every developer on the planet by creating faster and smarter testing solutions. The Customer Success Manager is a strategic role responsible for managing relationships with high-impact Enterprise customers, ensuring their success and long-term partnership with Buildkite.

Responsibilities:

• Own the post-sale state of a portfolio of named Enterprise accounts as the customer’s single accountable partner at Buildkite — across health, adoption, retention, and expansion identification
• Drive measurable business outcomes from the Buildkite investment by aligning each account’s success plan to the customer’s core engineering and business goals
• Act as the central Buildkite resource on the account — mobilizing Account Executives, Technical Account Managers, Solutions, Product, and Support so the customer experiences one cohesive Buildkite
• Determine when and how to engage each account based on the value it returns to the customer — right-sizing engagement so every interaction earns its place on the customer’s calendar
• Shape the playbooks, processes, and operating model of a founding CS function — and mentor future hires as the team scales
• Cultivate and maintain trusted relationships with customer C-suite, VP, Director, and program-owner stakeholders — including the executive sponsor accountable for the Buildkite investment
• Translate technical adoption and platform health into the business outcomes that matter to executive sponsors, and into the language they use with their own leadership
• Lead the EBR cadence with the AE and TAM — bringing the value narrative, customer readiness, and forward-looking strategy that keeps the partnership on track
• Amplify the voice of the customer inside Buildkite, ensuring Product, Engineering, and Support stay focused on what matters most to the accounts you own
• Navigate complex internal and customer organizations to drive consensus, surface blockers, and align stakeholders to the outcomes the partnership depends on
• Maintain a live view of technical, commercial, support, and relationship signals across your portfolio — surface risk early, mobilize the right Buildkite resources, and prevent escalation through proactive partnership
• Partner with the Account Executive on renewal strategy by driving the value narrative, customer readiness, and account health that underpin every commercial conversation
• Identify and source expansion opportunities through the Customer-Sourced Qualified Lead (CSQL) process — turning customer outcomes into growth
• Partner with the Technical Account Manager on the first 90 days, and sustain the joint CSM/TAM cadence that drives customers from go-live to long-term value

Requirements:

• 5+ years in Customer Success, strategic account management, or a senior post-sale role at a B2B SaaS company, owning Enterprise accounts end-to-end as the person accountable for value, retention, and expansion
• Direct experience at a CI/CD, DevOps, developer tools, or technical infrastructure SaaS company — enough domain fluency to navigate engineering conversations and the CI/CD problem space credibly, without trying to be the technical expert
• A demonstrable track record of driving retention and expansion outcomes on a named Enterprise book
• Exceptional executive communication and presence — comfortable engaging VP, CTO, and C-suite stakeholders, and translating technical work into the business outcomes their leadership cares about
• The ability to handle objections, navigate complicated discussions, and drive alignment across customer and internal stakeholders — with persistence in the face of adversity
• Experience orchestrating across Sales, Solutions, Support, Product, and Marketing to deliver a coherent customer experience across complex, multi-stakeholder accounts
• Strong commercial instincts — you understand how your work connects to renewal health, churn risk, and expansion, and you operate effectively alongside AEs and Renewals
• A strong autonomous operator who wants to define the role, not just fill it — comfortable building in a founding-team environment, shaping the playbook as you run the play, and contributing directly to the operating model of a new function
• 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
• Experience partnering with Technical Account Managers or Solutions Architects in a model where the technical and relationship roles are explicitly separated
• Familiarity with CS platforms (Vitally, Catalyst, Gainsight, Totango, or similar) and modern revenue stacks (Salesforce, Avoma, ChartMogul, or equivalent)
• Background contributing to or building out a CS function from an early stage — not just executing within an established one