About The RoleWe're hiring a Customer Activation Manager to own the entire customer journey from signed contract through onboarding graduation. You'll report to the Head of Customer Success. Every new customer onboarding flows through this role - which means you'll directly shape the first experience every Warp customer has with the product.
A customer isn't done onboarding when their first payroll runs. They're done when they're genuinely set up to succeed: the right stakeholders are engaged, the platform is configured for their setup, and they've seen the value Warp delivers. That bar is higher than most onboarding roles - and that's intentional.
At its core, this is a builder role. You'll run structured implementation tracks across small startups and 200+ person companies at the same time, calibrate your approach by company size, and work cross-functionally with Engineering, Tax Ops, and the broader Customer Success team to make sure no customer falls through the cracks between signed and live. The playbooks exist because someone wrote them - and you'll be the one who makes them better.
You'll have a direct line to the Head of Customer Success and own the KPIs that define activation: time to first payroll, onboarding graduation rate, and a 90%+ activation target across your book. Variable comp is tied directly to hitting them.
What You'll Do- Own every new customer onboarding end-to-end - from signed contract through graduation, with clean handoff criteria to Account Management.
- Execute tiered onboarding tracks calibrated to company size: lightweight self-serve oversight for small accounts, structured multi-stakeholder implementations for mid-market and enterprise.
- Drive first payroll on the first eligible pay cycle - ensuring data migration accuracy, tax registrations, and bank verification are complete before a customer's next pay period closes.
- Certify graduation: not just a payroll run, but confirmed stakeholder engagement, post-go-live training, and feature adoption appropriate to the customer's setup.
- Manage a portfolio of concurrent implementations with precision - proactive outreach, clear timelines, and zero dropped handoffs.
- Execute against tier-specific templates, escalation paths, and graduation checklists - and flag where they need to be improved.
- Partner cross-functionally: Engineering for custom setups, Tax Ops on state registration dependencies, Support on go-live blockers.
- Feed structured product feedback from implementation directly into the product team.
- Serve as a co-owner of the playbook alongside the Activations team, iterating on templates, escalation paths, and graduation criteria as you learn what works.
What You Need- Atleast 3+ years of experience in implementation, customer success, or project management in a B2B SaaS organization - with a track record of hitting activation or onboarding KPIs.
- Project management DNA - organized, process-driven, and calm under the pressure of juggling multiple concurrent implementations.
- Strong communicator: able to move multiple customer stakeholders through a structured checklist without losing momentum or relationships.
- Ability to calibrate your approach by company size - a 5-person startup and a 120-person company need fundamentally different onboarding motions, and you know the difference.
- Experience with payroll, HR tech, or fintech products - you understand the stakes of a missed pay cycle.
- A builder's mindset: you've improved a process, written a playbook, or closed a gap that wasn't yours to fix.
- High agency and a genuine bias for action in a fast-paced, high-accountability environment - you don't wait to be unblocked.
Nice To Haves- Familiarity with payroll platforms, or HRIS systems, accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks, Xero).
- Experience at an early-stage or high-growth company where the playbook was still being written.
- Track record owning implementation metrics end-to-end with specific numbers attached.
CompensationBase salary: $100,000-$160,000 depending on experience, plus performance spiffs tied to activation speed and graduation rate, plus equity.
