Leader, Customer Success

Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it, from the medicines we take, to the crops we grow, the materials we wear, and the household goods that we rely on every day. But moving at the new speed of science requires better technology.
Benchling’s mission is to unlock the power of biotechnology. The world’s most innovative biotech companies use Benchling’s R&D Cloud to power the development of breakthrough products and accelerate time to milestone and market.
Come help us bring modern software to modern science.

 Benchling is seeking a Customer Success Leader with a background in Life Sciences and enterprise SaaS. This role is an exciting blend of team management and strategic leadership.

You’re a hands-on leader who enjoys working closely with their teams and with their customers to drive significant adoption and customer advocacy. You must be able to think and act strategically as well as get into the details of our customer engagements and our product. You will develop an understanding of Benchling’s solutions, and demonstrate your experience to guide our teams to establish significant adoption strategies, to focus on customer outcome realization, and to build processes that scale.

To be successful in this role, you are comfortable with R&D processes and scientific concepts, and be able to speak confidently and build relationships with Scientific and IT leaders at leading Pharma and Biotech organizations. You have experience leading customer-facing teams in a high growth enterprise SaaS environment. And you are a proven leader who can drive a CS business from hiring and staffing, to managing and mentoring your team, to leading through change.

 Lead and Develop the CSM Team

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of CSMs, including hiring as needed.

• Foster a collaborative, customer-centric culture that drives measurable outcomes for customers.

• Ensure the team is highly enabled on Benchling’s platform and equipped with the scientific domain expertise needed to support customers effectively.

• Coach CSMs on designing and delivering Executive Business Reviews that showcase value realization, customer maturity, and Benchling's strategic roadmap

Drive Key Metrics and Program Success

• Lead the team in achieving adoption targets through strategic guidance and operational excellence. There will be a particular focus on AI adoption, including awareness, activation, and usage monitoring.

• Use data to identify risks, opportunities, and trends across the customer portfolio, and develop plans to address them.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Sales, Product, Professional Services) to ensure alignment on customer goals.

Adapt and Optimize Processes

• Implement best practices for tracking metrics, standardizing processes, and ensuring consistent delivery of value to customers.

• Partner with CX Operations to identify and eliminate sources of CSM toil, leveraging AI tools, automation, and improved workflows to increase team efficiency and allow CSMs to focus on high-value customer engagement.

Customer Advocacy and Support

• Serve as a senior point of contact for complex or high-priority customer engagements, supporting CSMs in addressing challenging situations.

• Champion the voice of the customer within Benchling, providing feedback to internal teams to drive product improvements and innovation.

• Guide CSMs in navigating complex customer organizations to build multi-threaded relationships and drive consensus on adoption strategies.
  

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences, Business, or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in Customer Success, Professional Services, or a related field within SaaS.

• 2+ years in a management role.

• Strong understanding of Life Sciences R&D, process development, or related scientific domains

• Proven ability to lead and develop a high-performing team.

• Excellent communication skills, able to build relationships across technical and business stakeholders at all levels.

• Self-motivated, adaptable, and thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

• Experience leveraging a modern CS tech stack, including CRM (e.g., Salesforce), customer success platforms (e.g., Gainsight), data/analytics tools (e.g., Mode, Sigma), and AI-assisted productivity tools (e.g., Claude).

• Ability to travel up to 20% based on team and customer needs.

Preferred:

• Experience working with or supporting the Benchling platform.

• Demonstrated ability to guide teams in managing complex customer relationships and driving measurable success. 
  

We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on-site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).

Benchling takes a market-based approach to pay. The candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, interview performance, and work location. For this role the base salary range is $146,400- $219,600.
Total Compensation includes the following:

• Competitive salary and equity

• Broad range of medical, dental, and vision plans for employees and their dependents

• Fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits

• Four months of fully paid parental leave

• 401(k) + Employer Match

• Commuter benefits for in-office employees and a generous home office set up stipend for remote employees

• Mental health benefits, including therapy and coaching, for employees and their dependents

• Monthly Wellness stipend

• Learning and development stipend

• Generous and flexible vacation

• Company-wide Winter holiday shutdown

• Sabbaticals for 5-year and 10-year anniversaries

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Benchling welcomes everyone.

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.
We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.