Scaled Customer Success Manager, Startups

About OpenRouter OpenRouter is the unified interface for AI inference, giving developers and organizations access to hundreds of models through a single API. Our platform helps teams choose, route, evaluate, and scale model usage across providers, making it easier to build production AI applications with the right model for every use case. As inference becomes a core operating layer for modern software companies, OpenRouter helps customers move faster, reduce complexity, and get more value from the rapidly evolving model ecosystem. About the Role We’re looking for a Scaled Customer Success Manager, Startups to build and own the post-sale engine for OpenRouter’s startup ecosystem. This is a builder role, not a scaled nurture role. OpenRouter’s startup ecosystem is one of the company’s most important growth surfaces, powered in part by the OpenRouter for Startups program, which helps AI-native companies access credits, infrastructure, and multi-model tooling to build and scale faster. Your job is to make that ecosystem work at scale. You’ll own the startup customer journey from program approval and onboarding through activation, retention, expansion, and Enterprise readiness. You’ll also own day-to-day program operations and communications across the OpenRouter for Startups ecosystem, while helping launch new initiatives, workflows, and partner programs over time. What You’ll Do Build the Startup Success Engine Own the scaled success motion for OpenRouter’s startup and scaled customer portfolio. Partner cross-functionally to iterate and refine the operating system for startup activation, retention, growth, and Enterprise conversion. Create and refine the workflows, dashboards, alerts, and playbooks that help the team understand which startups need attention, why they need it, and what action should happen next. Turn manual customer success and program operations work into repeatable systems. Drive Activation, Retention, and Growth Own the start-up inbox, day-to-day program communications, and portfolio health across the startup segment. Build scaled intervention workflows for customers showing risk signals. Create activation paths that help startups reach first value quickly and understand how to use OpenRouter effectively. Partner with Sales to surface startups ready for Enterprise conversion, higher usage commitments, premium support, compliance, observability, throughput, or strategic partnership. Work across GTM to expand distribution, improve onboarding and activation, and connect the startup program to broader growth initiatives. Engineer Workflows and Automations Build practical systems that make scaled customer success possible. Use AI-native tools and automation to reduce manual work across onboarding, follow-up, risk detection, expansion identification, reporting, and feedback capture. Build self-serve resources that help technical founders succeed without waiting for human intervention. This role requires someone who can build, not just coordinate. Own Startup Health and Expansion Signals Define what “healthy” looks like for startup customers. Segment the portfolio into cohorts. Create the operating cadence for reviewing startup portfolio health. Improve the Startup Program Help evolve OpenRouter’s startup program into a scalable growth engine. Improve the application, approval, onboarding, activation, communication, and follow-up experience. Build rubrics and workflows that identify high-potential AI-native startups and route them into the right journey. Ensure approved startups get value quickly and have clear paths to scale. Continuously improve how the program runs by streamlining processes and creating better experiences for founders, partners, and internal teams alike. Create Product Feedback Loops Turn startup customer, founder, and partner interactions into structured product signal. Capture and synthesize feedback across onboarding friction, model availability, routing behavior, latency, reliability, pricing, documentation gaps, integration blockers, and developer experience. Surface patterns to Product and Engineering based on frequency, customer severity, growth potential, and revenue impact. Build feedback loops that improve the experience for the entire startup ecosystem, not just one account at a time. What We’re Looking For You might be a fit if you are energized by building the system, not just running the motion. You have managed a scaled customer portfolio, startup program operations, developer ecosystem, PLG customer base, or technical customer segment. You care deeply about startups and understand the realities of early-stage building. You enjoy working closely with founders, operators, and emerging teams as they navigate product-market fit, growth, and scale. You are comfortable working with technical founders and developer-facing products. You understand API-first businesses and can speak credibly about usage, latency, reliability, cost, integrations, and production adoption. You know how to identify churn risk, activation blockers, expansion signals, and commercial opportunity in a usage-based business. You are fluent in customer data and can use usage trends, support signals, product analytics, and revenue data to drive action. You have built workflows, dashboards, automations, lifecycle programs, internal tools, customer journeys, or playbooks that improved customer outcomes at scale. You operate with a builder mindset and take ownership beyond your job description. You’re energized by creating structure from ambiguity and helping new programs scale from 0 to 1. You’re comfortable working in evolving environments where processes are still being defined. You do not default to manual touch points. You default to systems, repeatability, and leverage. You’ll Stand Out If You have experience in AI infrastructure, developer tools, API platforms, technical SaaS, or high-growth GenAI products. You have worked with startup customers, founders, or startup programs. You have experience with tools like HubSpot, Customer.io , Intercom, Zendesk, Linear, Retool, Zapier, Clay, Census, Hightouch, Mixpanel, Amplitude, or similar GTM / workflow / analytics platforms. You can build your own agents, write SQL, build lightweight internal tools, create automations, or use AI-assisted workflows to move faster. You have partnered with Sales on expansion, renewal, or Enterprise conversion motions. You have built customer health dashboards, scaled onboarding journeys, portfolio review cadences, lifecycle programs, or product feedback loops. You have strong instincts for which startups are likely to grow, which are likely to churn, and which need intervention. What Success Looks Like Within your first 2 weeks, you will understand the startup customer journey, map the current lifecycle, identify the highest-leverage activation and retention gaps, and define the first version of the startup health model. Within your first 4 weeks, you will launch initial workflows. Within your first 6 weeks, you will have built the first version of the scaled startup success operating system. Longer term, success means higher startup activation, stronger retention, faster time-to-value, clearer Enterprise conversion paths, better product feedback loops, stronger founder and partner feedback loops, and a startup ecosystem that grows without requiring linear headcount. This Is Not This is not a lifecycle marketing role. This is not a role focused on sending nurture campaigns and hoping customers engage. This is not a traditional CSM role built around manual check-ins and one-off account management. This is not a purely reactive support role. This is not a program coordination role where you wait for perfect clarity before acting. This is a builder role for someone who wants to design the scaled customer success engine for OpenRouter’s startup ecosystem. Why OpenRouter? The AI landscape changes every week. OpenRouter sits at the center of it, helping builders access, route, evaluate, and scale across the world’s leading models. This role gives you the opportunity to shape how thousands of AI-native startups succeed on OpenRouter. You’ll work directly with high-potential founders, identify the next wave of Enterprise customers, and build the systems that help them grow. High autonomy. High leverage. Direct impact on retention, growth, and the future of OpenRouter’s customer ecosystem. If building the engine sounds more exciting than simply running the motion, we should talk.