Customer Success Lead

Location: San Francisco; New York City Workplace: Hybrid As Customer Success Lead at Perplexity, you’ll lead the team responsible for helping enterprises adopt Perplexity Computer and our API products, turning adoption into measurable business value. You’ll own the customer success strategy and operating model, lead CSMs across customer segments, and be accountable for gross and net revenue retention across the post-sale book, with expansion targets shared with Sales. This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll stay close to customers and the product while building the team, programs, and cross-functional partnerships that help us scale. Responsibilities - Own gross and net revenue retention for the customer base, including renewal forecasting, risk management, and expansion targets shared with Sales - Set the customer success strategy, and coverage model across high-touch Enterprise, scaled SMB and Mid-Market, and technical API customers - Hire, coach, and develop CSMs across customer segments, establishing a regular cadence of 1:1s, account and renewal reviews, and a clear bar for performance and product expertise - Build the playbooks the team runs on, including Sales-to-CS handoffs, onboarding, customer success plans, health scoring, executive business reviews, and escalations - Partner with Applied AI and Enablement to build onboarding, workshops, champion programs, and scaled education that help customers reach first value and sustain adoption - Help customers connect adoption and consumption to business outcomes, understand usage and cost trade-offs, and build a clear case for renewal and expansion - Partner with Sales to identify self-serve customers ready to move to Enterprise and to plan expansion in named accounts - Work with RevOps and Finance on capacity planning, account assignment, book-of-business design, and accurate reporting in Salesforce - Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver a cohesive customer journey, with clear ownership and handoffs from onboarding through adoption, renewal, and expansion - Coordinate customer readiness and communications for product launches, migrations, pricing and usage changes, and incidents, partnering with Product, Marketing, Support, and Engineering on accurate guidance - Bring customer needs and recurring friction into product planning, and close the loop with customers on decisions and progress - Engage executive sponsors at our largest accounts and step in personally on strategic adoption efforts, high-stakes renewals, and escalations while building the team’s ability to own day-to-day execution You may be a good fit if - You have 10+ years in customer success, account management, or post-sales roles at enterprise software companies - You have 5+ years leading CS teams, with a track record of hiring, coaching, and developing high-performing CSMs - You’ve owned GRR and NRR targets and can show how your team moved them - You’ve built or rebuilt a CS function during rapid growth, not only run an established one - You’ve run both high-touch and scaled or digital coverage models and know when each one fits - You can show how your team helped customers move from initial onboarding to sustained adoption and measurable business outcomes - You’re comfortable with usage and consumption data, and ideally have supported usage-based or API products - You have strong command of Salesforce, forecasting, and customer health tooling - You’re hands-on with AI products and can build enough product fluency to understand customer workflows, diagnose adoption barriers, and earn trust with business and technical stakeholders - You communicate clearly with executive buyers, administrators, and technical teams, including during sensitive product changes or escalations - You’re comfortable operating without an established playbook, using AI and automation where they improve execution and knowing where human judgment matters