# Principal, Customer Success

**Company:** [Shield AI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/shield-ai)
**Location:** Washington, DC
**Role:** Customer Success
**Salary:** $150k – $230k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Salesforce, Gainsight, Jira, Confluence, Tableau, Power BI, Customer Success Operations, Critical Account Management, Executive Governance, Customer Health Scoring, Account Segmentation, Success Plans, Executive Business Reviews, Escalation Frameworks
**Posted:** 2026-06-24

> Lead and scale the Aircraft Division Customer Success function, owning the Critical Accounts Program for V-BAT and X-BAT defense customers. Drive adoption, mission readiness, and recovery for escalated accounts while building repeatable operating rhythms and cross-functional governance.

## Job Description

## What you'll do

- Establish and lead the Aircraft Division Customer Success function supporting V-BAT and X-BAT customers across U.S. government, allied, defense, and strategic commercial accounts.
- Lead, coach, and develop a team of Customer Success Managers responsible for customer adoption, readiness, mission value, and long-term account success.
- Build and operate the Customer Success operating model, including account segmentation, customer health scoring, success plans, engagement cadence, executive business reviews, and lifecycle governance.
- Ensure priority customers have documented success plans tied to mission outcomes, readiness objectives, adoption milestones, sustainment needs, and executive stakeholder alignment.
- Establish clear ownership and operating rhythms across Customer Success, Deployment Operations, Flight Operations, Training, Sustainment, Program Management, Sales, Product, Engineering, Quality, and Mission Operations.
- Lead the Aircraft Division Critical Accounts Program for escalated, at-risk, high-priority, or strategically sensitive customers.
- Define and manage CAP entry criteria, severity levels, account health triggers, escalation paths, exit criteria, and executive reporting standards.
- Lead cross-functional critical account reviews with clear owners, decision logs, recovery plans, customer communications, root-cause analysis, and measurable closure criteria.
- Provide senior leadership with concise, action-oriented visibility into account risk, customer sentiment, mission impact, commercial exposure, and recovery status.
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, Training, Sustainment, and Business Development to drive permanent corrective actions and prevent recurring customer issues.
- Serve as a senior customer advocate for V-BAT and X-BAT customers, ensuring Shield AI understands customer mission needs, operating constraints, adoption barriers, readiness expectations, and growth opportunities.
- Translate customer feedback into clear product, support, training, documentation, sustainment, and operational requirements.
- Build scalable processes for onboarding, adoption, training coordination, operational readiness, sustainment handoffs, and recurring mission value reviews.
- Support strategic customer engagements, demonstrations, exercises, operational deployments, and executive briefings as needed.
- Own customer health dashboards, risk registers, executive reporting, account plans, success plan templates, CAP dashboards, and operating metrics.
- Define and track indicators such as mission readiness, adoption, training progress, fleet availability, support responsiveness, issue aging, customer sentiment, renewal or expansion risk, and executive engagement health.
- Build a culture of urgency, ownership, operational excellence, professionalism, transparency, and customer advocacy across the Customer Success team.

## Required qualifications

- 10+ years of experience in customer success, customer operations, account management, program management, field operations, professional services, aviation operations, defense technology, aerospace, or mission-critical enterprise technology.
- 10+ years of experience leading customer-facing teams or managing customer success, account management, support, field operations, or program teams.
- Demonstrated experience managing escalated, at-risk, executive-level, or mission-critical customer accounts.
- Experience operating structured escalation, customer health, critical account, executive governance, or customer recovery processes.
- Strong executive presence and ability to communicate clearly with senior military, government, enterprise, and internal executive stakeholders.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity, urgency, conflict, and high operational stakes.
- Strong understanding of customer lifecycle management, adoption, sustainment, readiness, support, renewals, and expansion motions.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including executive briefings, account plans, recovery plans, and leadership updates.
- Ability to travel up to 15% and work effectively with customers and teams in operational, field, and headquarters environments.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.

## Preferred qualifications

- Experience in defense, aerospace, autonomous systems, aviation, UAS, software-defined systems, military operations, or operational technology deployed in austere environments.
- Experience supporting Department of Defense, U.S. military services, allied defense customers, or government customers.
- Experience with VTOL UAS, aviation operations, ISR, mission systems, autonomy, deployed operations, aircraft sustainment, or mission-critical field operations.
- Prior military service or direct experience working with operational military units.
- Experience with structured Critical Accounts Programs, enterprise escalation frameworks, technical account management, customer success operations, or executive sponsor programs.
- Familiarity with Salesforce, Gainsight, Jira, Confluence, Tableau, Power BI, or similar customer success, support, and reporting systems.
- Active Secret or Top Secret clearance.

## Similar roles

- [Principal Success Manager - Strategic Accounts](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/ffd79bcf-bf75-4943-b00b-1fe5aed63fd4) - Ontic - Remote - $150k – $160k/yr
- [Principal Customer Success Manager, Strategic](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/7abce8f1-6a6b-43b3-a06e-c1138a1d752b) - 6sense - San Francisco, CA - $159k – $230k/yr
- [Principal Post Sales Solution Consultant](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/f96b8a15-b397-411e-8921-461857413d25) - Socure - Carson City, NV - $160k – $200k/yr
- [Principal Customer Success Manager, Enterprise](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/2ffc4edb-e925-49a2-908b-5266b10a4ede) - 1Password - Remote - $134k – $194k/yr
- [Staff Applications Engineer, Learning & Development (R5053)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/70e3fd53-1c53-486f-8a7d-ab87023938c7) - Shield AI - San Diego, CA - $150k – $230k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/c5867bff-8a2a-47a6-b26f-afee87da5707
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/c5867bff-8a2a-47a6-b26f-afee87da5707