Customer Success Manager Job Description
A customer success manager job description template — the sales-flavored version, with a retention quota, expansion targets, and base-plus-variable pay.
"Customer Success Manager" is one of the least consistently defined titles in software. At some companies it's a support-adjacent role — onboarding new customers, answering product questions, coordinating renewals that mostly renew themselves on their own momentum. At others it's a quota-carrying revenue role, measured and paid on retention and expansion numbers almost the way an Account Executive is measured on new bookings. Both are common, they are not the same job, and the posting rarely says outright which one it means.
The clearest tell is the compensation structure. A support-flavored CSM role is typically a flat salary with, at most, a small discretionary bonus. A revenue-owning CSM role — this one — carries a base salary plus variable pay tied to a retention or expansion target, the same structural logic as the rest of the sales organization. If a CSM posting lists only a salary with no mention of a quota, target or variable component, you're almost certainly looking at the support version. This one names the number on purpose.
The other split worth knowing about: portfolio size. Some CSM roles cover dozens or hundreds of smaller accounts and run mostly one-to-many, low-touch communication; others cover a dozen or fewer larger, named accounts and look closer to strategic account management. The account count in a posting tells you which one faster than the title does.
Brindlow · Remote (US)
Full-time · Remote
$78,000 – $92,000 base ($95,000 – $112,000 OTE)
About the role
At Brindlow, the Customer Success Manager owns the relationship after an Account Executive closes the deal: onboarding, adoption, renewal and expansion for a portfolio of roughly 30-40 mid-market manufacturing and distribution accounts. This is a revenue-owning seat — you'll carry a net-revenue-retention target for your portfolio, not just a satisfaction score.
The role is fully remote, and you'll work closely with an Account Executive on your named accounts whenever an expansion opportunity is worth bringing them back in for. We hire CSMs who can hold a hard renewal conversation as comfortably as a routine check-in.
What you'll do
- Own onboarding for newly closed accounts, getting new customers live on Brindlow within the first 60 days.
- Manage a portfolio of roughly 30-40 mid-market accounts, prioritizing your time by account risk and expansion potential.
- Run quarterly business reviews with key accounts that tie product usage back to the outcome the customer bought it for.
- Own the renewal conversation and a net-revenue-retention target for your portfolio.
- Identify expansion opportunities — additional seats, modules or usage tiers — and loop in an Account Executive to close them.
- Track adoption and usage data closely enough to catch a disengaging account before it becomes a churn risk, not after.
- Act as the customer's internal advocate, routing product feedback and support escalations to the right team.
- Keep account health scores and renewal forecasts current and accurate in the CRM.
What we're looking for
- 2+ years in a customer success, account management or other client-facing revenue role at a B2B SaaS company.
- Comfortable owning a number — this role carries a retention and expansion target, not just relationship maintenance.
- Experience running a renewal conversation, including at least one where the customer wasn't happy going in.
- Ability to read product usage data and turn it into a specific conversation with a customer, not a generic check-in.
- Strong written and verbal communication across a range of stakeholders, from day-to-day admin users to VP sponsors.
- Organized enough to manage a multi-account portfolio without the quiet accounts going unnoticed until renewal.
Nice to have
- Experience in supply chain, logistics or operations software specifically.
- Familiarity with a customer success platform such as Gainsight or Vitally, alongside a CRM.
- Experience carrying a formal expansion or upsell quota, not only a renewal-rate target.
- Some direct sales experience, even briefly — it changes how a renewal conversation gets run.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match.
- Base salary plus variable tied to portfolio retention and expansion.
- Fully remote, with an annual budget to attend one in-person team gathering.
- Twenty days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$78,000–$92,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (3)
Important (8)
Mentioned in passing (5)
Frequently asked questions
Is Customer Success Manager a sales role or a support role?
It depends entirely on the company, and the title alone won't tell you. This posting is the revenue-owning version: base salary plus variable tied to a retention and expansion target, much closer to sales than support. A posting with no quota, target or variable pay mentioned anywhere is almost always describing the support-flavored version instead.
What's the difference between a Customer Success Manager and an Account Manager?
In practice, heavy overlap, and plenty of companies use the titles interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn, CSM tends to lean toward adoption and retention and Account Manager toward owning the full commercial relationship, including upsell and renewal negotiation — but that convention is inconsistent enough across companies that it's not reliable on its own.
Does this role require prior sales experience?
Not formally, but because this is a revenue-owning CSM role with a real retention and expansion number attached, candidates who can speak to having owned any kind of number before — even informally — tend to have an easier time in the interview process than candidates coming purely from a support background.
This was a sample. Your resume should be tailored to the real thing.
Rezi Ninja reads an actual job posting and rewrites your resume to match it, with a Ninja Score so you know it lands before you hit send. Free to start, with the AI usage included.