Customer Success Manager - Cloud

Location: US - Alameda, San Deigo, Detroit, Boston

ABOUT WIND RIVER 

Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent systems. For more than four decades, the company has been an innovator and pioneer, powering billions of systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability.  

Wind River helps customers across automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications industries solve complex technology challenges on their journey toward the new intelligent machine economy. The company’s software powers generation after generation of the safest, most secure systems in the world.  Examples include playing a key role in NASA space missions such as Artemis I, the James Webb Space Telescope, and multiple Mars rovers. We’ve achieved recent 5G milestones including the world’s first successful 5G data session with Verizon and building one of the largest Open RAN networks in the world with Vodafone. 

The company has received industry recognition for its technology innovation and leadership, and for its workplace culture, including global Great Place to Work certification and being named a “Top Workplace” for ten consecutive years. If you want to be part of a unique culture where the lived experience is based on our cultural attributes of growth mindset, customer-focus, and diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging, come join us and help advance the future software defined world. 

About The Opportunity

Wind River has an opportunity for a US-based Customer Success Manager with extensive experience with VMware vSphere (or OpenStack) and/or enterprise Linux software, tools, and the ecosystem.  In addition to the technology, the CSM should have experience with IT software methodologies and processes, strategies, and best practices to manage the successful adoption of these products by our critical enterprise customers. The ideal candidate has experience working with enterprise customers particularly on large migration projects, is strategically minded and collaborates with all internal stakeholders to exceed customers’ expectations and is a driver of exceptional customer experience across the full customer lifecycle with the goal of driving value and creating successful onboarding, adoption, enablement, expansion, and renewal experiences while mitigating churn risk.

Job Goals:

• Ensuring that Wind River customers unlock the full business value from their purchases based on their business outcomes and use cases
• Ensuring that customers have a great experience migrating to and deploying their Wind River Cloud Platform and eLxr based solutions
• Ensuring that customers:
  • Renew (and expand) their licenses
  • Serve as positive references in private and public settings
  • Expand their consumption of Wind River products and services

Job Brief

Customer Success Managers at Wind River provide continuity and business value to our customers over their full adoption journey.  The candidate must have the demonstrated ability to build relationships within the account at the executive, line manager, and individual administrator level to ensure a great experience and maximum business value realization across the customer’s business.  The CSM will implement Wind River’s lifecycle adoption methodology but also develop new programs that will increase the business’ revenue potential and minimize churn. 

A Customer Success Manager’s responsibilities include guiding customers as they transition from sales prospects to won business staying focused on their business outcomes, building close relationships that often last beyond any one project, and ensuring that these customers become positive references and “customers for life.”

Ultimately, you will work directly with customers to help solve their problems and ensure their satisfaction while they are an active account with Wind River.  You will “own” the outcome of a successful customer both by marshalling the required internal resources (from Engineering, Product Management, Professional Services, Technical Support, and Executive leadership) and by coming up with creative solutions to customer challenges that you will implement yourself.

Responsibilities

• Ensure customer retention goals are met (prevent churn).
• Marshal Wind River resources to ensure that the customer (over)achieves their schedule milestones and ROI objectives with our products and services (an example might be a customer requiring a product capability that is not yet implemented – the CSM would mobilize Professional Services and Product Management resources to identify a solution for the customer).
• Ensure that customer project team members are well educated in the products and services and their business benefits so that they can be fully participating members of the design team.
• Advocate for your customer and deliver business value by showing them how to solve their business problems with our products and services – business problems that they may not yet realize they have, based on competitive and industry best practices. 
• Promote the value of Wind River products and services to achieve business outcomes both in the direct customer organization with whom you are engaged and elsewhere in the enterprise.
• Scout out opportunities to enlarge the Wind River footprint within the account by listening and questioning key customer contacts about their business initiatives and challenges.
• Ensure a positive customer experience by taking ownership and keeping internal Wind River challenges out of view
• Assist where applicable in creating and delivering training courses and educational materials 
• Review customer complaints and concerns and seek to improve the customer experience
• Ensure your customers serve as references to promote sales in their industry and beyond
• Maintain written record of customer interactions, sentiment, issues and their resolution, plans, organizational dynamics, and other factors relating to the state of the relationship between Wind River and the account, in a customer intelligence platform available for Sales, Product, Services, Support, Customer Success, and Executive leadership.
• Provide regular usage and experience feedback from customers to Product Management and Engineering to help improve our products.

Requirements and skills

• 10+ years Industry experience, at least 5 years of demonstrated work experience as a Customer Success Manager or similar role working with playbooks/runbooks, success plans, and health monitoring.
• Strong, deep, and current technical knowledge of either or both: 1) enterprise VMware vSphere or Openstack environments and/or 2) enterprise Linux systems, tools, competition, landscape and ecosystem.
• A proven track record supporting Global 2000 companies in the high tech industry
• Experience working with brand image and promoting value through customer experience.
• Self-motivated and able to work remotely with minimal supervision.
• Exceptional ability to communicate and foster positive business relationships at executive through individual contributor levels.
• Technical skills in software development lifecycle required, as they relate to the use of the products and services.
• Strong ability to communicate at a detail level, the business benefits and value of company products and services.
• Ownership, accountability and personal organization are essential.  Experience as a professional Project Manager on technical implementation projects is a big plus.
• Demonstrated experience working with and managing broad cross-functional teams.
• Experience in managing a diverse group and training each according to company standards.
• A technical degree is preferred.
• Ability to travel up to 25%.

 BENEFITS 

• Flexible home office! We offer the flexibility of a hybrid work schedule or 100% remote
• Named Top Workplace for the 8th year in a row
• Wind River’s commitment to DEIB
• 100% Employee covered Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance*
• Flexible Time Off policy* + 12 observed Holidays
• 401K with company match
• Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Wellness Benefits through Unmind

Compensation                            

OUR COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY 

Wind River is committed to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social, or ethnic origin, age, physical, mental, or sensory disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, HIV status, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status including pregnancy, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.  Wind River will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on these characteristics. 

To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com. 

APPLICANT PRIVACY NOTICE:                

Your privacy is of the utmost importance to us. At Wind River, we strictly adhere to all applicable data privacy laws. Please review Wind River's Applicant Privacy Notice, which can be found here.                    

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