Scaled Customer Success Manager, Startups

OpenRouter

About The Position

OpenRouter is seeking a Scaled Customer Success Manager, Startups to build and manage the post-sale customer success engine for its startup ecosystem. This role is focused on creating scalable systems and processes to support startups from onboarding through to activation, production usage, retention, expansion, and Enterprise readiness. The successful candidate will own day-to-day program operations, communications, and the development of new initiatives. Key responsibilities include identifying customer pain points, building repeatable intervention systems, designing health scoring, creating lifecycle triggers, developing risk dashboards, writing playbooks, automating workflows, and surfacing expansion opportunities. The role requires cross-functional collaboration with marketing, GTM, operations, sales, and partnerships teams. The ideal candidate will be comfortable discussing technical concepts with founders and translating these into operational systems and product feedback. This is a builder role focused on creating scalable solutions rather than managing individual accounts manually.

Requirements

Energized by building the system, not just running the motion.
Managed a scaled customer portfolio, startup program operations, developer ecosystem, PLG customer base, or technical customer segment.
Deep understanding of startups and the realities of early-stage building.
Comfortable working with technical founders and developer-facing products.
Understanding of API-first businesses and ability to speak credibly about usage, latency, reliability, cost, integrations, and production adoption.
Ability to identify churn risk, activation blockers, expansion signals, and commercial opportunity in a usage-based business.
Fluent in customer data and ability to use usage trends, support signals, product analytics, and revenue data to drive action.
Experience building workflows, dashboards, automations, lifecycle programs, internal tools, customer journeys, or playbooks that improved customer outcomes at scale.
Builder mindset with a proactive approach to improving systems, streamlining processes, and creating better experiences.
Strong execution in fast-moving environments.
Comfortable creating structure from ambiguity and scaling new programs from 0 to 1.
Comfortable working in evolving environments where processes are still being defined.
Default to systems, repeatability, and leverage rather than manual touchpoints.

Nice To Haves

Experience in AI infrastructure, developer tools, API platforms, technical SaaS, or high-growth GenAI products.
Experience working with startup customers, founders, or startup programs.
Experience with tools like HubSpot, Customer.io, Intercom, Zendesk, Linear, Retool, Zapier, Clay, Census, Hightouch, Mixpanel, Amplitude, or similar GTM / workflow / analytics platforms.
Ability to build agents, write SQL, build lightweight internal tools, create automations, or use AI-assisted workflows.
Experience partnering with Sales or Account Executives on expansion, renewal, or Enterprise conversion motions.
Experience building customer health dashboards, scaled onboarding journeys, portfolio review cadences, lifecycle programs, or product feedback loops.
Strong instincts for identifying high-potential startups, churn risk, and intervention needs.

Responsibilities

Build the Startup Success Engine: Own the scaled success motion for OpenRouter’s startup and scaled customer portfolio. Partner cross-functionally to iterate and refine the operating system for startup activation, retention, growth, and Enterprise conversion. Partner on the customer lifecycle from approval to first value, from experimentation to production, and from startup usage to larger commercial opportunity. Create and refine the workflows, dashboards, alerts, and playbooks that help the team understand which startups need attention, why they need it, and what action should happen next. Turn manual customer success and program operations work into repeatable systems.
Drive Activation, Retention, and Growth: Own the start-up inbox, day-to-day program communications, and portfolio health across the startup segment. Identify customers that are stalled, at risk, growing quickly, or ready for deeper commercial engagement. Build scaled intervention workflows for customers showing risk signals. Create activation paths that help startups reach first value quickly and understand how to use OpenRouter effectively. Partner with Sales to surface startups ready for Enterprise conversion, higher usage commitments, premium support, compliance, observability, throughput, or strategic partnership. Work with Marketing, GTM, operations, sales, and partnerships teams to expand distribution, improve onboarding and activation, and connect the startup program to broader growth initiatives.
Engineer Workflows and Automations: Build practical systems that make scaled customer success possible. Partner cross-functionally to maintain lifecycle triggers, account segmentation, usage alerts, health dashboards, customer journeys, and internal workflows. Use AI-native tools and automation to reduce manual work across onboarding, follow-up, risk detection, expansion identification, reporting, and feedback capture. Build self-serve resources that help technical founders succeed without waiting for human intervention, including model routing guides, cost optimization playbooks, troubleshooting paths, integration references, and production best practices.
Own Startup Health and Expansion Signals: Define what “healthy” looks like for startup customers. Track signals such as token volume, usage growth, active keys, active projects, model diversity, error rates, latency issues, support volume, credit burn, production adoption, and growth velocity. Segment the portfolio into cohorts. Create the operating cadence for reviewing startup portfolio health.
Improve the Startup Program: Help evolve OpenRouter’s startup program into a scalable growth engine. Improve the application, approval, onboarding, activation, communication, and follow-up experience. Build rubrics and workflows that identify high-potential AI-native startups and route them into the right journey. Ensure approved startups get value quickly and have clear paths to scale. Flag startups with strong usage, technical sophistication, or commercial potential for Enterprise motion, strategic partnership, or deeper engagement. Continuously improve how the program runs by streamlining processes and creating better experiences for founders, partners, and internal teams alike.
Create Product Feedback Loops: Turn startup customer, founder, and partner interactions into structured product signal. Capture and synthesize feedback across onboarding friction, model availability, routing behavior, latency, reliability, pricing, documentation gaps, integration blockers, and developer experience. Surface patterns to Product and Engineering based on frequency, customer severity, growth potential, and revenue impact. Build feedback loops that improve the experience for the entire startup ecosystem, not just one account at a time.