API Field Specialist, Slack

Salesforce•Chicago, IL

5d•$150,100 - $247,900•Remote

About The Position

As API and platform consumption become a growing revenue stream for Slack, sales cycles involving higher API rate limits and usage-based pricing are increasingly complex. Account Executives don't have the technical depth to scope these deals or answer usage questions, and platform engineers are being pulled into sales cycles as an ad hoc stopgap — an unsustainable drain on core product work. We're hiring a Field Specialist, API Monetization to close this gap: a customer-facing technical expert who becomes the key pillar of this new revenue stream. This person will partner with AEs throughout the sales cycle as the primary technical point of contact for customers on all things API-related — using deep product knowledge and a usage forecasting model to size deals, explain pricing, and build trust with technical buyers.

Requirements

10+ years in a technical, customer-facing, or pricing/consumption-modeling role
Deep fluency in APIs, rate limiting, and usage-based pricing models
Comfortable owning and defending a quantitative model in front of a skeptical customer or seller — not just building one
Track record partnering with sales teams on complex technical or commercial deals
Strong communication skills; equally credible with technical and business stakeholders
Experience translating field and customer feedback into product or pricing input

Nice To Haves

A senior Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, or Technical Account Manager from a company with real usage-based or metered pricing, who has personally had to explain a bill or cost estimate to a skeptical enterprise customer — not just demo a product. That "defending a number under questioning" experience is the closest proxy for this job. Deep API fluency is a must.
Usage/consumption-pricing companies: Twilio, Stripe, Snowflake, Datadog, MongoDB Atlas, Confluent, Fastly — places where explaining a rate card to a customer is a named, practiced skill
Token-based API companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, and other LLM API providers — likely the single best-fit talent pool; token economics conversations map almost directly onto this role
AWS/GCP enterprise TAMs specializing in cost optimization (Cost Explorer-style work) — different product, same core skill

Responsibilities

Partner with AEs on deals involving API usage, rate limits, or platform consumption
Serve as the technical expert in customer conversations — confidently explaining API mechanics, usage patterns, and what a given spend level unlocks for the customer
Use the usage forecasting calculator to size deals (credits or flat-rate) and walk both sellers and customers through the "why" behind a number
Help identify which accounts to prioritize for API-related deals based on current usage patterns
Meet directly with customers' technical teams to scope requirements and validate usage assumptions
Keep the usage calculator accurate as the rate card and packaging evolve
Feed field learnings back to product and pricing — surfacing patterns and recommending evolutions to the rate card or calculator
Build reusable frameworks and playbooks so AEs can eventually self-serve on simpler deals
Advise on and help ensure final deal terms related to APIs are structured correctly, in partnership with the AE and Deal Desk