Sr. Director, Customer Success - Americas

If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply.  Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.

About the role:

You will be working at a fast-paced startup as the leader of the Customer Success, Americas team, reporting to the Chief Customer Officer. This organization has roles that are responsible for interfacing with our customers across the pre and post-sales lifecycle, and you will be responsible for driving customer value realization and overall customer experience. Our Customer Success teams are looking to lead the way in the industry and shape how companies in our space engage with customers for the next 20 years.

As the leader of the team, you will act as a trusted partner and sponsor for our largest and most critical customers. Ensuring all successful day-to-day operations for the Customer Success Organization. In this role, you will have the opportunity to interface with everyone in the customer environment from Developers to Executives, and represent Kong culture and values everyday. You will also be collaborating to ensure the cross-functional Customer Experience teams execute on this vision.

This is one of the most interesting roles in the industry combining technical and customer success skills, and we are trying to do things differently. Your existing playbook and experience will be useful but expect the need to innovate and be creative in how we address everything from titles to billable project structure. Above all, you’ll be acting as a stellar leader and mentor for the rest of Kong.

• Own Customer Success teams including hiring, staffing, growth and day-to-day operations
• A proven track record with fast-growing organizations, using data to drive initiatives and decision-making processes
• Define, build, and execute playbooks aligned to effective solutions for the customer journey
• Collaborate and partner with multiple teams regularly (Sales, Product, Marketing, Professional Services, Support, etc) helping to build customer value realization “brand” across our entire organization
• You will be measured on driving adoption, NDR, customer renewals, and expansion
• Manage escalations without supervision
• Act as a technical mentor for the team, while this is a managerial role you should have some relevant insight and experience to provide the team with authentic mentorship
• Understand how to effectively present executives (internal and external) with data and business cases/justification
• And any additional tasks required by manager

• Above all - a leader who loves growing their team
• You know how to deal with ambiguity and the ability to navigate through it with perseverance, driving positive energy and point of view. 
• Technical mindset with the aptitude to learn about development environments and API management domain
• Familiarity with modern software constructs and architectural patterns and how to discuss them with humans - but know your limits and hand off to the team when necessary 
• Self awareness and strong communication skills are a must
• Operate with the utmost transparency and authenticity both internally and externally
• 10+ years of experience in customer-facing roles required
• Proven track record of exceeding key business goals including bookings, revenue, margin, NDR and similar
• Prior experience in Open Source companies is highly preferred
• Ability to travel to customer and Kong locations as-needed (post COVID)

Kong has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. Compensation varies depending on a wide array of factors, including but not limited to specific candidate location, role, skill set and level of experience. Certain roles are eligible for additional rewards including sales incentives depending on the terms of the applicable plan and role. Benefits may vary depending on location. US based employees are typically offered access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan, short and long term disability benefits, basic life and AD&D insurance, among others. The typical base pay range for this role in the US is $210,000 - 240,000.

About Kong: 

Kong is THE cloud native API platform with the fastest, most adopted API gateway in the world (over 300m downloads!). As the innovation leader of cloud API technologies, Kong is on a mission to enable companies around the world to become "API-first" and securely accelerate AI adoption.  Kong helps organizations globally - from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises - unleash developer productivity, build securely and accelerate to market.

83% of web traffic today is API calls!  APIs are the connective tissue of the cloud and the underlying technology that allows software to talk and interact with one another.  Therefore, we believe that APIs act as the nervous system of the cloud.  Our audacious mission is to build the nervous system that will safely and reliably connect all of humankind!

For more information about Kong, please visit konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter. We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.