Defense Customer Success Lead

Sofar Ocean•San Francisco, CA

5d•$100,000 - $150,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for someone with experience using innovative marine technologies and working with the U.S. Department of War who is passionate about bringing novel capabilities to enhance situational awareness, reduce risk to force and mission, and provide a strategic advantage. As a Defense Customer Success Lead, you will embed with Defense users of Sofar products to train, enable, and problem-solve. You’ll be at the forefront of mission impact by empowering users to get the most out of their Spotter hardware and data, helping them make faster, safer decisions backed by ocean intelligence. Your top priority is solving customer challenges using Sofar products and helping users get the most out of their Spotters. This will involve wearing multiple hats, including solutions engineer, product manager, training instructor, and support. You will be pushing the boundaries of Sofar product use in the defense community, including developing new TTPs and adapting products for new use cases. You are the first hire focused on customer success for defense, so we are looking for a motivated and visionary leader who is excited to build out the function, including establishing internal processes (such as customer onboarding), success playbooks, and customer-facing TTPs. You love the Spotter platform and are creative about how it can be used to solve problems in the field. You will be comfortable with close collaboration with multiple teams (Product, Technical Support, etc.), extensive travel, and creating structure in ambiguous situations. You will also partner closely with Sales to grow existing customer accounts. You will also be the lead for Sofar’s participation in military exercises (e.g., Balikatan). This includes conceptualizing the CONOP, interfacing with government and vendor partners, executing successful Sofar product deployments at the exercise, capturing learnings, and implementing follow ups (such as product or playbook improvements).

Requirements

Experience using innovative marine technologies
Experience working with the U.S. Department of War
5+ years of experience working with the U.S. DoD.
Strong understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities involved in deploying innovative technologies in theater, including understanding safety and compliance hurdles and real-world constraints.
Savvy in navigating government bureaucracy and in connecting the dots between users and program managers
Excellent communication, problem solving, and interpersonal skills.
Self-starter with the ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment, including self-managing a balance between developing and implementing a customer success plan and solving short-term customer needs
Curiosity and passion for understanding marine technologies and identifying customer gaps where technologies can be applied.
Willingness to travel as needed to meet customers, attend events, and participate in exercises.
U.S. Citizen with active SECRET clearance

Nice To Haves

Experience working in customer success functions
Active TS/SCI clearance
2+ years of experience in a customer success role, preferably in maritime/environmental tech
Located in San Francisco, CA, Norfolk, VA, San Diego, CA, or Honolulu, HI

Responsibilities

Develop and execute a scalable customer success plan to: (1) onboard and train new users; (2) help existing users get the most out of their Sofar products; and (3) Bring learnings from the field back to Product
Work closely with the Defense GTM team to expand existing accounts
Lead the end-to-end customer success relationship and process, including building and maintaining relationships with Defense users and implementing the customer success framework with each customer account
Understand customer needs deeply, including developing customer profiles and TTPs and sharing learnings back to the rest of the company
Collaborate with internal teams (Defense GTM team, product, marketing, engineering) to align solutions with market demand and customer requirements.
Provide market insights and feedback to inform product and go-to-market strategies.
Assess competitors.
Collaborate on proposal and presentation development and submission.
Lead Sofar’s participation in military exercises, including conceptualizing CONOPs, interfacing with partners, executing deployments, capturing learnings, and implementing follow-ups.