About the RoleWe're looking for a Scaled Customer Success Manager, Startups to build and own the post-sale engine for OpenRouter's startup ecosystem.
This is a builder role, not a scaled nurture role.
OpenRouter's startup ecosystem is one of the company's most important growth surfaces, powered in part by the OpenRouter for Startups program, which helps AI-native companies access credits, infrastructure, and multi-model tooling to build and scale faster.
- Your job is to make that ecosystem work at scale.
- You'll own the startup customer journey from program approval and onboarding through activation, retention, expansion, and Enterprise readiness. You'll also own day-to-day program operations and communications across the OpenRouter for Startups ecosystem, while helping launch new initiatives, workflows, and partner programs over time.
What You'll DoBuild 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.
- 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.
- 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 across GTM 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.
- 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.
- This role requires someone who can build, not just coordinate.
Own Startup Health and Expansion Signals- Define what "healthy" looks like for startup customers.
- 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.
- 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.
What We're Looking For- You might be a fit if you are energized by building the system, not just running the motion.
- You have managed a scaled customer portfolio, startup program operations, developer ecosystem, PLG customer base, or technical customer segment.
- You care deeply about startups and understand the realities of early-stage building. You enjoy working closely with founders, operators, and emerging teams as they navigate product-market fit, growth, and scale.
- You are comfortable working with technical founders and developer-facing products.
- You understand API-first businesses and can speak credibly about usage, latency, reliability, cost, integrations, and production adoption.
- You know how to identify churn risk, activation blockers, expansion signals, and commercial opportunity in a usage-based business.
- You are fluent in customer data and can use usage trends, support signals, product analytics, and revenue data to drive action.
- You have built workflows, dashboards, automations, lifecycle programs, internal tools, customer journeys, or playbooks that improved customer outcomes at scale.
- You operate with a builder mindset and take ownership beyond your job description.
- You're energized by creating structure from ambiguity and helping new programs scale from 0 to 1.
- You're comfortable working in evolving environments where processes are still being defined.
- You do not default to manual touch points. You default to systems, repeatability, and leverage.
You'll Stand Out If- You have experience in AI infrastructure, developer tools, API platforms, technical SaaS, or high-growth GenAI products.
- You have worked with startup customers, founders, or startup programs.
- You have experience with tools like HubSpot, Customer.io, Intercom, Zendesk, Linear, Retool, Zapier, Clay, Census, Hightouch, Mixpanel, Amplitude, or similar GTM / workflow / analytics platforms.
- You can build your own agents, write SQL, build lightweight internal tools, create automations, or use AI-assisted workflows to move faster.
- You have partnered with Sales on expansion, renewal, or Enterprise conversion motions.
- You have built customer health dashboards, scaled onboarding journeys, portfolio review cadences, lifecycle programs, or product feedback loops.
- You have strong instincts for which startups are likely to grow, which are likely to churn, and which need intervention.
What Success Looks Like- Within your first 2 weeks, you will understand the startup customer journey, map the current lifecycle, identify the highest-leverage activation and retention gaps, and define the first version of the startup health model.
- Within your first 4 weeks, you will launch initial workflows.
- Within your first 6 weeks, you will have built the first version of the scaled startup success operating system.
- Longer term, success means higher startup activation, stronger retention, faster time-to-value, clearer Enterprise conversion paths, better product feedback loops, stronger founder and partner feedback loops, and a startup ecosystem that grows without requiring linear headcount.
This Is Not- This is not a lifecycle marketing role.
- This is not a role focused on sending nurture campaigns and hoping customers engage.
- This is not a traditional CSM role built around manual check-ins and one-off account management.
- This is not a purely reactive support role.
- This is not a program coordination role where you wait for perfect clarity before acting.
- This is a builder role for someone who wants to design the scaled customer success engine for OpenRouter's startup ecosystem.
