Roles we recruit
Seven practices, 27 functions. Start at the practice when you cannot yet name the title; go straight to the function when you can.
Browse all 229 roles Brief us on a seatFlat 15% of first-year base · shortlist in 10 working days
Nine seats sit under customer success, from the implementation consultant who gets a customer live to the director who owns net revenue retention. We split them by the stage of the customer lifecycle each one owns, screen for retention on a book they managed rather than satisfaction scores, and charge a flat 15% only once your hire starts.
Most customer success briefs ask for a CSM and describe an onboarding problem, an adoption problem or a renewal problem. We start with the stage of the lifecycle that is leaking.
The customer lifecycle, and the seat that owns each stage
Moves: time to go-live and time to first value
2 seats
Getting new customers live and to first value: kickoff, project plan, training and the handover to a CSM.
Brief us when onboarding takes too long, customers stall before they see value, or every onboarding runs differently.
The technical deployment: configuration, integrations, data migration and testing, often billable, until the customer is running.
Brief us when your product needs configuration or integration work, and implementations slip or overrun.
Moves: active usage and feature adoption
2 seats
Active usage after go-live: usage analysis, feature adoption campaigns and the interventions that turn licenses into habits.
Brief us when customers pay for seats or features they do not use, and renewal calls open with an empty usage report.
Training at scale: academies, certification, documentation and webinars that teach customers to succeed without a call.
Brief us when your CSMs repeat the same training on every account, or customers need education faster than the team can deliver it.
Moves: account health and gross retention
3 seats
A book of accounts after the sale: adoption, health, renewals and the expansion conversations that grow each account, measured on retention.
Brief us when customers sign and then go quiet until renewal, or churn arrives as a surprise.
Hire a Customer Success ManagerThe relationship with a smaller number of high-value clients, often in services or agency models, where delivery quality and trust decide the renewal.
Brief us when you sell services or high-touch software, and each client is worth enough to need a senior owner.
The experience across every touchpoint: journey mapping, feedback programs, NPS and CSAT, and the fixes that remove friction.
Brief us when customers complain about the gaps between teams, and feedback is collected but never acted on.
Moves: renewal rate and expansion revenue
1 seat
The renewal book: forecasting, negotiating and closing renewals on time, including price increases and multi-year terms.
Brief us when renewals slip past their dates, discounts creep in at renewal, or CSMs avoid the commercial conversation.
Moves: net revenue retention across the base
1 seat
Net revenue retention across the customer base: the CS team, segmentation, playbooks, health scoring and the renewal forecast.
Brief us when you have several CSMs, retention varies by who owns the account, and nobody owns the system.
Measured on
Customer success attracts people who are good with customers, and being liked is easy to show in an interview. We screen for what keeps revenue: retention on a book of known size, the commercial conversations they led, and how they use data to see risk early.
We ask for gross and net revenue retention on the book they managed, with its size, segment and the accounts they lost. Satisfaction scores on their own are where we dig.
Candidates walk us through one account they saved and one they lost: the signals, what they did and when, and what they would do differently.
We role-play a renewal with a price increase, or an expansion conversation. CSMs who avoid money conversations hand every renewal to someone else.
We ask how they used health scores, product usage and support data to find risk before the customer said anything, and check it with a former manager.
Not sure which seat you need? Tell us where customers drop off, from kickoff to renewal, and we will tell you which of the nine owns it.
Public US benchmarks, read October 2026. Customer success pay is mostly base, with a variable tied to retention, renewals or expansion that grows with seniority. Account management is shown as the nearest neighboring seat.
Each bar runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, the middle half of reported pay.
Base salaryMedian base salaryAverage total pay, base plus variable
Customer Success Manager
Built In, self-reported
$85,000 median base$113,695 average total
Director of Customer Success
Salary.com base, Built In total
$159,344 to $195,346 base$192,718 average total
Account Manager
Built In, self-reported, neighboring seat
$75,000 median base$123,206 average total
Customer Success Manager: Built In’s client success manager benchmark, median base and average total compensation, self-reported, reviewed October 1, 2026. Director of Customer Success: Salary.com base salary, 25th to 75th percentile, United States, as of October 1, 2026, with Built In average total compensation. Account Manager: Built In, self-reported, reviewed September 30, 2026. Public aggregates, not ZaphyrRecruit placement data.
The clock starts when the brief is signed and stops when three to five calibrated candidates are in front of you. Most of that time is spent talking to people, not searching for them.
Day 1
Forty-five minutes with whoever the hire reports to. We leave with the number the seat owns, the range you can pay and the two or three things that genuinely disqualify.
Days 2 to 7
We build the list from people doing the job now, approach them directly and screen every name against the brief before it reaches you.
Days 8 to 10
Three to five people, each with a page: what they have run, why they fit this seat, pay expectations, notice period and where they are weak.
After the shortlist
Interviews run at your pace. We handle scheduling, references and the counter-offer conversation, and nothing is payable until your hire starts.
Three clients, quoted as they wrote to us about searches we ran for them. We publish no names or logos without permission.
A customer success manager owns outcomes after the sale: adoption, health and retention, and often the renewal. An account manager owns the commercial relationship: renewals, upsell and expansion revenue against a target. Many teams combine the two; when expansion is a big part of the plan, splitting them stops CSMs from avoiding the commercial conversation.
A flat 15% of the hire’s first-year base salary, payable only once they start. On a $100,000 base that is $15,000. There is no retainer, no exclusivity and nothing to pay if the search does not produce a hire.
Self-reported data on Built In puts the median base for client success managers at $85,000, with average total compensation of $113,695 (October 2026). Directors of customer success sit at $159,344 to $195,346 base on Salary.com. Book size, segment and whether the role carries a renewal or expansion target move the number.
When renewals start to matter to the plan and customers need help to get value without a salesperson. Common triggers are churn showing up in the second year, or account executives spending their week on existing customers instead of new ones. Before that, a strong onboarding process and a founder who talks to customers can carry you.
It depends on contract value and how much help customers need. High-touch enterprise accounts may need a CSM for a handful of customers, while a low-touch SMB base can be served at scale with automation and education. We help size the book at the brief, so the seat you hire matches the work.
Ten working days from a signed brief to a shortlist of three to five calibrated candidates. Interviews and the offer then run at your pace. A renewal role-play sits inside our screen, so your own interviews can focus on product and team fit.
Yes. Onboarding, CSM and renewal seats hired as one structure is how we run a pod, briefed together so the second and third searches do not restart. The same 15% applies to each hire, payable as each one starts.
Tell us where customers drop off, how big the book is and which number the seat owns. We reply within one business day with which of the nine seats it is and what it pays.
Most of our customer success searches are filled from people we already know, the week an employer briefs us. Set up a job alert for customer roles, or send your CV and we will come to you when a seat opens.
Customer Success sits in our Customer & Retention practice, next to account management and support. Retention also depends on the systems behind it and the sale before it, so those are here too.