Backblaze

Sr. Account Manager, Strategic Accounts

Backblaze$150K — $192K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years in Account Management, CSM, or Strategic Sales, particularly in technical infrastructure sectors.
  • Proven history managing multi-million dollar accounts with measurable growth results.
  • Comfortable as the daily representative of the account, supporting rather than overshadowing executives.
  • Ability to identify expansion opportunities by engaging with customer needs deeply, rather than traditional upselling methods.
  • Strong operational skills with a focus on tracking issues and commitments to ensure account success.
  • Fluency in cloud infrastructure concepts, particularly related to storage and data management.
  • Experience building relationships with technical decision-makers across customer organizations.

Responsibilities

  • Manage the operational health of strategic accounts, ensuring prompt issue resolution and smooth workflows.
  • Serve as the voice of the company for account relationships and commercial negotiations.
  • Identify expansion opportunities through relationship development and customer insights.
  • Negotiate terms for contract renewals and expansions alongside executive teams.
  • Achieve ramp targets within specified timelines to establish credibility and propose new business avenues quickly.
  • Coordinate internally with support, engineering, and product teams to keep accounts functioning optimally.
  • Active account farming to discover new workloads or challenges that could lead to expansion opportunities.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive healthcare, including dental and vision for families.
  • Competitive compensation package with a 401K plan.
  • Stock options through RSU grants for full-time employees.
  • Flexible vacation policy allowing for work-life balance.
  • Generous maternity and paternity leave.
  • Personalized workstation stipend with a MacBook Pro.
  • Childcare bonus and support for fertility treatments.
  • Learning opportunities through development programs and commuter benefits.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We're looking for a Sr. Account Manager, Strategic Accounts to be the connective tissue inside our most strategic, multi-million dollar accounts. This is a three-part role: part relationship manager, part CSM, part AE - and you need to be genuinely good at all three.

Our executives will be in the room for the big moments. Your job is everything in between. You'll make sure the account works operationally - integrations are humming, issues get resolved before they escalate, the right people are talking to each other. And while you're doing that, you'll be listening closely for the next problem to solve, the next workload to win, the next expansion hiding inside the account.

The catch: our customers are infrastructure people. They think in terms of object storage, S3-compatible APIs, egress architectures, GPU-dense compute environments, and petabyte-scale data pipelines. They will know immediately if you're winging it - and they'll respect you immediately if you're not. You don't need a PhD. But you kind of need to think like someone who considered one.
What You'll Do
  • Manage day-to-day operational health across a portfolio of strategic accounts with multi-million dollar ARR - you're the person the customer calls when something needs to get done
  • In addition to the day to day operational health, you will own the commercial relationship between executive touchpoints - you are the account's day-to-day voice of Backblaze
  • Drive expansion pipeline through relationship depth, not just product knowledge - you find the next opportunity because people tell you things
  • Negotiate renewal terms and expansion pricing in partnership with executives, bringing account context and relationship capital to the table
  • Hit defined ramp targets in your first 90/180/270 days, establishing yourself as a trusted presence in each account and building expansion pipeline quickly
  • Keep accounts running smoothly - coordinating across Support, Engineering, and Product to resolve issues, track open items, and ensure commitments are met
  • Farm accounts actively and systematically - always listening for new workloads, infrastructure challenges, or organizational changes that signal expansion opportunity
  • Build and maintain working relationships across multiple stakeholder layers - Infrastructure, DevOps, Storage Engineering, FinOps, and Procurement - while Backblaze executives own the C-suite relationship
  • Partner with Solutions Engineers on technical discovery, architecture reviews, and POC engagements when expansion opportunities surface
  • Translate deep technical product capabilities - B2 Cloud Storage, S3-compatible APIs, multi-cloud egress optimization, data durability architectures - into solutions that map to real customer problems
  • Prepare executives for high-stakes customer meetings with account context, relationship intelligence, and clear briefings
  • Maintain accurate pipeline, account health, and forecast data in CRM - your accounts should never be a black box to the team
The Right Fit
  • 7+ years in a hybrid Account Management, CSM, or Strategic Sales role - specifically in cloud infrastructure, storage, networking, or adjacent technical infrastructure segments
  • Demonstrated track record managing and growing multi-million dollar accounts with measurable NRR and expansion results
  • You're comfortable being the day-to-day face of the account without needing to be the most senior person in the room - you know how to set executives up for success and how to work alongside them, not in front of them
  • A natural farmer - you find expansion by staying deeply curious about the customer's business, not by running a quarterly upsell motion
  • Operationally sharp - you track open issues, follow through on commitments, and keep accounts from going sideways before anyone notices
  • Deep, genuine fluency in infrastructure: object storage, block and file storage architectures, S3-compatible APIs, egress cost modeling, data pipeline design, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments
  • You own relationship problems the same way you own a quota or a target- accountability isn't something you delegate
  • You can hold your own technically when a Solutions Engineer isn't in the room - comfortable whiteboarding cloud workflows, data pipelines, and integration architectures with customers at a conceptual level, knowing when to go deep and when to loop in the right expert
  • You understand how AI/ML training workloads, media pipelines, large-scale backup architectures, and developer platforms consume storage - and why the economics matter to the buyer
  • Comfortable building working relationships with technical buyers - VPs of Infrastructure, Storage Architects, DevOps leads - across multiple levels of a customer org
  • Proven ability to carry quota at the Sr. level with clear ramp milestones and expansion targets
  • Strong CRM discipline - your pipeline and account notes are always current and useful to the broader team
Bonus Points
  • Experience selling to or within Neocloud, hyperscaler, or AI/ML infrastructure environments
  • Familiarity with data egress cost structures, S3 pricing models, and total cost of ownership conversations in cloud storage
  • Background at a specialized cloud or infrastructure vendor (not just a generalist hyperscaler)

Backblaze Perks:
  • Healthcare for family, including dental and vision
  • Competitive compensation and 401K
  • RSU grants for full-time employees
  • ESPP program
  • Flexible vacation policy
  • Maternity & paternity leave
  • MacBook Pro to use for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation
  • Childcare bonus (human children only)
  • Fertility treatment and support
  • Learning & development program
  • Commuter benefits
  • Culture that supports a healthy work-life balance

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below.

The base pay range for this position is $150,150 - $192,500

About Backblaze

Backblaze is a data storage company that provides cloud storage and backup solutions for businesses and consumers. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Backblaze offers a range of products, including cloud storage, backup software, and data migration services. The company's cloud storage service is designed to be affordable and easy to use, with no hidden fees or complicated pricing structures. Backblaze has over 1 million customers and stores over 1 exabyte of data.
Learn more about Backblaze
Size
200 employees
Market Cap
$165.8 million
Industry
Founded
2007
NASDAQ

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