Opportunity

Senior CSM at Chainguard - Grow in Cybersecurity in Columbus

Location Columbus
Company Chainguard
Source jobicy
Posted 2026-09-30 04:35:07

Career & Market Insight

Career Trajectory: This is a senior-level CSM role at a high-growth, well-funded cybersecurity startup (Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, IVP backing). The 5+ year experience requirement and emphasis on autonomy, C-suite engagement, and portfolio ownership signal this is not an entry-level position — it's a strategic individual contributor role with real influence.

Skills You'll Build: This role sits at the intersection of enterprise customer success, cybersecurity, and cloud-native infrastructure. You'll deepen expertise in:

  • Supply Chain Security and DevSecOps — among the fastest-growing domains in cybersecurity
  • Stakeholder management from engineers to CISOs — highly transferable to VP/Director CS roles
  • Change management for large enterprise rollouts
  • Cross-functional influence without authority

Compensation Context: No salary is disclosed, but CSM roles at Series C/D cybersecurity startups in Germany typically range €80,000–€120,000 OTE (base + variable). The 10-year stock option exercise window is genuinely exceptional — industry standard is 90 days post-departure, making this a strong green flag for long-term equity value.

Green Flags:

  • Tier-1 VC backing signals strong runway and exit potential
  • 100% health insurance coverage (rare in European startup contexts)
  • Emphasis on entrepreneurial ownership — excellent for those seeking growth into leadership

Watch For: Early-stage startup pace and "build new processes" language mean ambiguity is the norm. If you prefer structured playbooks, this may be challenging. But for those seeking rapid career acceleration in a red-hot security niche, this is a strong opportunity.

Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.

Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.

Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.

The role, in a nutshell:
As a Customer Success Manager at Chainguard, you will be the post-sales primary point of contact for our customers. You will be responsible for taking lead on customer engagements across onboarding, implementation, and adoption. In this role, you will work closely with Solutions Architects, Technical Support, Product Management, Engineering and Sales to ensure the successful onboarding and support of your customers. You are their day-to-day contact, building relationships with customers and driving outcomes, adoption, and delivering time-to-value.

What you'll do:

  • Success Planning & Value: Drive business success planning by partnering with customers, pre-sales, and post-sales teams to align on requirements, goals, and challenges. Provide thought leadership on change management for large, scaled rollouts. Support the full Business Value Realization cycle to ensure customers can demonstrate and prove value internally.
  • Customer Advocacy: Act as the voice of the customer within the organization, advocating for customer needs and requirements to internal teams. This means being a team player and having strong collaboration skills — this role must align with many different internal teams, influence them to act toward customer needs.
  • Issue Management: Collaborate with Technical Support and Customer Engineering teams to ensure timely resolution to customer issues.
  • Product Expertise: Develop hands-on technical knowledge of Chainguard and stay up-to-date with industry trends, new features, and best practices so you can help customers optimize their use of Chainguard.
  • Training & Education: Collaborate with customers and our Edu team to ensure customers are educated on product features, best practices, and security principles.
  • Account Management: Develop relationships with multiple levels of customer stakeholders from technicians to CISOs. Work closely with sales teams to identify the best path to renew and expand customers while minimizing churn risks.

What we're looking for:

  • 5+ years experience in enterprise, customer-facing roles collaborating with both technical and business teams — Customer Success, Professional Services, Technical Account Management or a combination of those plus Sales, Solutions Engineering, or Technical Support.
  • Relevant domain knowledge of one or more of the following: Supply Chain Security, DevSecOps, AppSec, security infrastructure, containers, regulatory compliance requirements, vulnerability management, software development lifecycle.
  • This is a strategic and proactive role; the expectation is that this person will take full ownership of their customer portfolio and act with a high level of autonomy. This includes making key decisions to drive effective customer outcomes, deciding when to include executive or C-suite leadership in escalations, how to de-risk or de-escalate customer issues and conflict, and advocating to internal teams including sales, product, engineering, etc.
  • An entrepreneurial mindset — you will often build entirely new processes or practices to ensure we best serve customers.
  • Demonstrates a strong commitment to continuous personal and professional development, actively seeking opportunities to enhance skills, expand knowledge, and advance within their career and field.
  • Driven, high emotional intelligence, and strong priority management skills.

Strongly Preferred:

  • Previous early-stage startup experience
  • Passion for technology & cybersecurity
  • Relevant hands-on technical experience in one or more of the following domains: cloud computing environments (AWS, GCP, Azure), containers, Linux, Supply Chain Security, DevSecOps, AppSec, security infrastructure, regulatory compliance requirements, vulnerability management, software development lifecycle

About Us

We live and breathe our company values:

  • We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
  • We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
  • We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
  • We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well-informed decisions.

A few of the benefits we offer:

  • Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone and internet costs.
  • Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
  • 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
  • Unlimited Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need — to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
  • 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.

If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.

©2026 Chainguard. All Rights Reserved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this Customer Success Manager role fully remote?
Yes, Chainguard is a remote-first company. The role includes a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone, and internet, plus bi-annual in-person destination summits for the team.
What technical background is required for this CSM role?
You need relevant domain knowledge in at least one of: Supply Chain Security, DevSecOps, AppSec, containers, vulnerability management, or the software development lifecycle. Hands-on experience with AWS, GCP, Azure, or Linux is strongly preferred.
Does Chainguard offer equity compensation?
Yes — stock options are granted upon hire and promotion, with a notably generous 10-year exercise window. Employees can also participate in secondary offerings.
How much experience is needed for this role?
Chainguard requires 5+ years in enterprise, customer-facing roles such as Customer Success, Professional Services, Technical Account Management, or a combination with Sales or Solutions Engineering.
What does the health insurance benefit look like?
Chainguard covers 100% of health, vision, and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents, with nothing deducted from your paycheck.
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