Director, Customer Success

OpenRouter•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

OpenRouter is hiring a Director of Customer Success to build and scale an AI-native Customer Success organization. This is a builder role focused on combining strong customer relationships, technical expertise, intelligent systems, automation, and scalable programs to drive adoption, retention, and growth. The Director will own Customer Success strategy and execution across AI-native startups, enterprises, and strategic customers. The role leads Customer Success Managers and partners closely with Forward Deployed Engineering, Support, Sales, and Product. It balances direct engagement with strategic customers and the development of AI-powered systems and programs that support a large and growing developer and startup customer base. The successful candidate will bring leadership experience at a hyperscaling AI-native company, model lab, or developer infrastructure platform; understand consumption-based businesses and developer adoption; and translate customer usage into measurable business outcomes. Success includes establishing an effective operating model, improving customer adoption and retention, building visibility into customer health and revenue, and scaling engagement through AI, automation, and a capable team.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in Customer Success, account management, or related post-sales functions.
4+ years leading teams through significant growth.
Experience leading and scaling Customer Success at a hyperscaling AI-native company, model lab, or developer-first infrastructure platform.
Experience building scalable Customer Success programs, workflows, automations, or AI-powered systems that improve customer outcomes and team effectiveness.
Understanding of APIs, SDKs, LLMs, inference infrastructure, and the challenges of taking AI applications from experimentation into production.
Track record of driving retention, expansion, NRR, GRR, and consumption growth in usage-based or subscription businesses.
Ability to engage developers, engineering leaders, founders, and C-level executives and translate technical adoption into measurable business value.
Experience building repeatable customer engagement models that support significant customer and revenue growth without proportional headcount increases.
Use of product usage, customer health, adoption signals, and revenue data to prioritize engagement and drive outcomes.
High ownership, ability to move quickly and thrive in ambiguity, and comfort balancing hands-on customer work with building long-term organizational capabilities.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a leading LLM model lab, AI inference platform, or developer-first AI infrastructure company.
Experience managing enterprise and AI-native startup customer segments.
Experience building AI agents, automated customer lifecycle programs, or intelligent customer engagement workflows.
Familiarity with model routing, inference economics, latency, reliability, and production AI workloads.
Experience building Customer Success organizations in consumption-based, product-led growth environments.
Experience partnering closely with Forward Deployed Engineering or technical implementation teams.

Responsibilities

Define and execute a Customer Success strategy that scales through intelligent systems, automation, and high-impact customer engagement.
Own the customer journey from onboarding through production adoption, value realization, retention, and expansion across customer segments.
Drive Gross Revenue Retention, Net Revenue Retention, customer health, and inference consumption growth; partner with Sales on strategic renewals and expansion opportunities.
Develop AI-powered workflows, customer intelligence, and lifecycle programs that identify risks, uncover growth opportunities, and deliver personalized engagement at scale.
Build trusted relationships with developers, technical leaders, founders, and executives at innovative AI companies and enterprises.
Lead and develop Customer Success Managers with technical fluency, commercial acumen, and strong customer ownership.
Establish customer health frameworks, success plans, adoption milestones, executive business reviews, and measurable customer outcomes.
Partner with Sales, Forward Deployed Engineering, Product, and Support to accelerate customer activation, resolve adoption barriers, and identify growth opportunities.
Use product telemetry, inference usage, customer feedback, and business signals to drive proactive engagement and influence product strategy.
Develop a deep understanding of customers, product usage, customer journeys, and existing post-sales operations; establish relationships with strategic customers and identify opportunities to improve adoption, retention, and scalability.
Establish customer health and revenue visibility, refine engagement models across segments, and implement scalable workflows.
Build a Customer Success operating model, demonstrate measurable progress against adoption and retention goals, and create a roadmap for scaling engagement through AI, automation, and team capabilities.