Kong | $140,000-$160,000
Steph's Notes:
U-First Fridays Get 4 hours a month for continuous learning with a book, podcast, or course of your choice.
Wow, four whole hours a month? How generous.
Silence those notifications. Enjoy some well-deserved long weekends where the entire team unplugs.
Um.
Build a home office environment tailored to support your productivity. We’ll help foot the bill.
Every "benefit and perk" feels more red-flaggy than the last.
If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
I will give them credit for putting this *before* the job description and for the welcoming way they phrased this. Most companies put this last, if they include it at all, so Kong gets points on this from me.
And any additional tasks required by manager
I always worry a little when this gets tacked on at the end of a duties list – it's not necessarily *always* a red flag, but it's worth asking why a company felt the need to add it.
Is the company understaffed overall so that everyone needs to wear numerous hats at little notice? Is the management team understaffed to the point that they have to delegate management tasks to direct reports? Is it something else? The answer to these questions could be your catnip or your kryptonite, so don't just assume you know what it means!
Strong desire to tackle hard technical problems and proven ability do so with little or no direct daily supervision
I also like how they phrased this! They explain what they want instead of relying on "self-directed/independent team player" or ableist language.
Experience managing multiple projects at a time while focusing on attention to detail and deliver results across multiple initiatives such as driving expansion, customer satisfaction, feature adoption, and retention
Making grammatical errors / typos in the same sentence as requiring attention to detail will never stop being funny, no matter how many times I see it.
I'm going to put this in Eh, It's Probably Fine, not because we're ignoring the red flags (I'd recommend asking further about them in interviews), but because the green flags show that they are trying.
Kong shows their heart in their values and in the job description. I can see the shape of what they're trying to do, so I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume they'll grow over time. I guess we'll see what I hear and how they fare in future JDs!
Original Job Description: Technical Customer Success Manager
Are you ready to power the World's connections?
If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
About the role:
As a member of the CSM team you will act as a champion for our largest and most critical customers. You will function as the primary post-sales point of contact for all technical, product and support questions on a day-to-day basis and will help establish, implement and run processes and projects that help deliver successful adoption and usage of Kong products. In this role you will have the opportunity to interface with everyone in the customer environment from Developers to Executives and represent our values every day and will allow you to understand their business, operational, and technical needs to help them achieve the greatest value from Kong.
Why should you want to work at Kong?
Market Opportunity - We are on a quest to build a $10b+ software company over the next few years and need YOUR help! Why APIs Matter? APIs have been enabling innovation for decades! Strong VC team, Series D, strong year over year revenue growth!
Technical Leadership - We are recognized as the leader in innovation in the connectivity space. Marco, our CTO/co-founder - “We are the Cisco of L4 and L7” - CUBE Conversation, March 2021. We are the leading innovator in the connectivity space!
Amazing Team & Culture - Come be a "Konger" and find out what we mean. Great Place to Work Certified in 2020 & 2021Kong employees exemplify our culture at our 2022 Sales Kickoff2022 Forbes Cloud 100 Honoree
Building Great Products - Learn why the world's largest companies love our tech! Kong Named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant. Over 250m+ downloads of our open source API gateway! Over 40k+ stars on Github between Kong API and Kong Insomnia!
What you will do:
- Ensure constant communication with customers and emerge as customer’s trusted technical advisor and a partner
- Establish business value for customers and help them achieve the targets and ROI
- Involved in customer’s renewal and expansion.
- Work with customers to explore new use cases and expand Kong’s API platform usage
- Understand, advocate and document customer’s use case, architecture and roadmap
- Effectively manage the tracking and resolution of customer escalations on behalf of product and services
- Manage customer accounts with Kong’s customer maturity model framework, including driving cadence calls, and establishing Quarterly Business Reviews.
- Periodic review of Kong implementation and walk through best practices
- And any additional tasks required by manager
What you'll bring:
- 3-5 years of experience working in a technical, customer-facing role (Technical Account Management, Sales Engineering, Technical Support, Professional Services)
- Knowledge of developer concepts such as DevOps, full-stack application development and microservices on cloud computing
- Excellent communication skills and an ability to concisely articulate complex technical issues and solutions
- Storytelling with data to articulate business value realized though Kong products
- Strong collaboration and teamwork with cross functional teams (Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Support, etc.) to represent the voice of the customer
- Strong desire to tackle hard technical problems and proven ability do so with little or no direct daily supervision
- Experience managing multiple projects at a time while focusing on attention to detail and deliver results across multiple initiatives such as driving expansion, customer satisfaction, feature adoption, and retention
- Prior experience administering/interacting with an API management platforms (plus)
- Prior experience working for a technology startup (plus)
Kong has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. Compensation varies depending on a wide array of factors, including but not limited to specific candidate location, role, skill set and level of experience. Certain roles are eligible for additional rewards including sales incentives depending on the terms of the applicable plan and role. Benefits may vary depending on location. US based employees are typically offered access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan, short and long term disability benefits, basic life and AD&D insurance, among others.
The typical base pay range for this role in the US is $140,000 - 160,000. This role does have a variable on top of the base salary.
What is a Konger?
We are a group of makers, thinkers, and doers focused on helping today’s developers build tomorrow’s technology. Our teams work on the bleeding edge of API innovation to provide our users with a central nervous system for data and services.
We put design at the heart of everything we do, and we’re relentlessly focused on creating beautiful experiences for our customers. That’s why technology companies, major banks, e-commerce innovators, and government agencies put Kong in front of their most important web applications.
We believe in the power of Open Source and everything it stands for. That’s why developers around the world enthusiastically contribute on top of our open-source platform.
We are passionate about solving challenges that will fundamentally shape the future of technology, and we’re looking for the right people to join us on our mission. If you believe in taking ownership of your work, making an impact, and having fun along the way, we would love to talk to you.
Kong Core Values:
Be Inclusive. We work together from anywhere to achieve our common goals. Our differences make us stronger.
Be Authentic. We are genuine, principled and confident without arrogance. Show respect and kindness, especially in tough moments.
Be Relentlessly Resourceful. We work with purpose, obsession and grit. It takes muscle to do hard things and doing hard things build muscle.
Be Customer Obsessed. We care. Customers are everything, we put them at the center of everything you do. We are all empowered to make an impact.
Be Curious. We value ideas over hierarchy. Never accept the status quo. We make bold bets, fail, and learn everyday. There is always a way.
Be an Owner. We are drivers not passengers and own the quality and outcomes of our work.
About Kong: Kong is THE cloud native API platform with the fastest, most adopted API gateway in the world (over 300m downloads!). Loved by developers and trusted with enterprises’ most critical traffic volumes, Kong helps startups and Fortune 500 companies build with confidence – allowing them to bring solutions to market faster with API and service connectivity that scales easily and securely. 83% of web traffic today is API calls! APIs are the connective tissue of the cloud and the underlying technology that allows software to talk and interact with one another. Therefore, we believe that APIs act as the nervous system of the cloud. Our audacious mission is to build the nervous system that will safely and reliably connect all of humankind! For more information about Kong, please visit konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter.
We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status.
