Staff Customer Success Manager

About Buildkite 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. Role Description 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. 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. Your Impact Strategic Account Leadership Account Ownership: 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. Value Realization: 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. Internal Orchestration: 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. Cadence Design: 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. Strategic Direction: 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. Executive Influence and Customer Partnership C-Suite Engagement: Drive C-suite, CTO, and board-level engagement on customer outcomes and strategic direction — comfortable as the Buildkite executive presence on the account. Business Translation: Translate platform investment into board-level business outcomes, in the language the customer's executives use with their own leadership and board. Executive Business Reviews: 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. Customer Advocacy: 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. Stakeholder Navigation: 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. Function Leadership and External Posture Operating Model Ownership: 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. Mentorship and Team Development: 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. Cross-functional Initiatives: 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. Risk, Renewal, and Expansion Standard: 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. You're a Strong Fit if You Have 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 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 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 Demonstrated impact on team and function — you've built playbooks, mentored teams, and driven cross-functional initiatives that outlasted your direct ownership of them Direct experience in CI/CD, DevOps, or developer infrastructure SaaS — deep domain expertise and strong technical fluency, without trying to be the technical expert Strong commercial fluency — you understand pricing, packaging, and the economics of named-account coverage, and you operate effectively alongside AEs and Renewals 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 Nice to Have 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 Player/coach experience — formal or informal team leadership in an IC capacity, including line-of-sight responsibility for the development of less-senior CSMs 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 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) Why You'll Love Working at Buildkite Remote-first culture and support for work-life balance Competitive compensation and benefits package Meaningful work alongside some of the most innovative engineering teams in tech Opportunities for professional growth, learning, and career development A supportive, collaborative team culture where your ideas and expertise matter Compensation — $160–170K 🌈 Equal Opportunity Employer 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. If you need any accommodations or support during the application or interview process, please reach out to us at [email protected].