Principal Customer Success Manager (CSM) is responsible for managing strategic and enterprise customer relationships to ensure successful adoption, value realization, and long-term retention of Couchbase's database and data platform solutions. This individual contributor role partners closely with Sales, Support, Product, and Professional Services to help customers deploy and scale Couchbase in mission-critical production environments.

The Principal Customer Success Manager acts as a trusted advisor to technical and executive stakeholders, ensuring customers achieve measurable business outcomes while identifying opportunities for expansion and long-term partnership.
Key Responsibilities

Customer Relationship Management

• Serve as the primary post-sales point of contact for a portfolio of enterprise and strategic customers.
• Build strong relationships with customer stakeholders including engineering leaders, architects, and executives.
• Conduct regular business reviews and success planning sessions with customers.

Customer Adoption & Value Realization

• Guide customers through onboarding, deployment, and adoption of Couchbase solutions.
• Help customers align product capabilities with their technical and business objectives.
• Monitor product usage and adoption trends to ensure customers achieve maximum value.

Renewals & Expansion

• Partner with Sales and Renewals teams to support successful subscription renewals.
• Identify opportunities for expansion such as additional workloads, environments, or product capabilities.
• Develop account success plans to drive long-term customer growth.

Customer Advocacy

• Act as a customer advocate internally, representing customer needs and feedback to Product and Engineering teams.
• Promote customer success stories, references, and case studies.
• Support strategic customer engagements and executive briefings.

Risk Management

• Monitor customer health indicators and proactively address adoption risks.
• Manage escalations and coordinate internal teams to resolve technical or operational issues.
• Develop recovery plans for at-risk accounts.

Key Performance Metrics

• Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
• Customer renewal rate
• Customer adoption and usage growth
• Expansion revenue influence
• Customer satisfaction (CSAT / NPS)
• Customer health score

Required Qualifications

• 8-10 years of experience in Customer Success, Technical Account Management, Account Management, or similar customer-facing roles.
• Experience supporting enterprise SaaS, database, or infrastructure platforms.
• Ability to work with technical stakeholders such as developers, architects, and engineering teams.
• Strong communication and relationship management skills.
• Experience with CRM and customer success platforms (e.g., Salesforce, Gainsight).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with distributed databases, NoSQL, or cloud platforms.
• Familiarity with modern application architectures such as microservices and cloud-native environments.
• Experience supporting customers running large-scale or mission-critical production systems.

Key Skills

• Strategic customer engagement
• Enterprise account management
• Technical solution understanding
• SaaS adoption and retention strategies
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Executive communication

The anticipated starting base pay range for this role is listed below. Base salary is not the only component of our competitive total rewards package - you may also be eligible for bonus, commissions, equity, and other benefits as described below. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, licenses and certifications, and specific work location.

Base Pay Range

$145,286-$162,771 USD

Couchbase offers a total rewards approach to benefits that recognizes the value you create here, so that you in turn may best serve yourself and your family. Some benefits include:

• Generous Time Off Program - Flexibility to care for you and your family
• Wellness Benefits - A variety of world class medical plans to choose from, along with dental, vision, life insurance, and employee assistance programs*
• Financial Planning - Retirement program* and Business Travel Insurance
• Career Growth - Be valued, Create value approach
• Fun Perks - An ergonomic and comfortable in-office / WFH setup. Food & Snacks for in-office employees.
• And much more!

*Note: some programs are not applicable to all countries. Please discuss with a Couchbase recruiter to learn more.

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