Customer Success Manager

Surf Air; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flight discounts

Health insurance

401(k) plan

PTO and holidays

Employee travel program

Job summary

Surf Air Mobility seeks a Customer Success Manager to own end-to-end client relationships for SurfOS accounts across operators, brokers, aircraft owners, and OEMs. You’ll lead implementation, adoption, and backlog coordination with internal engineering and Palantir Foundry teams.

You’ll translate client workflows into platform configurations, write clear requirements, and manage cross-functional releases while driving renewals and growth.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years in customer success, account management, implementation, or technical program management at a B2B software company with named client accounts.
• Aviation background with operations experience in charter operators, brokers, and aircraft owners.
• Experience carrying a client from contract signature through production go-live.
• Technical fluency to read an API contract and reason about a data model with engineering collaboration.
• Requirements writing that engineers can build from without a follow-up meeting.
• Ability to discern what a client needs to go live vs. what can wait, while preserving the relationship.
• Clear, direct written and spoken communication with executives and operational teams.
• Willingness to travel for on-sites, training, and go-live support.

Responsibilities

• Own the client relationship from contract to go-live and steady state.
• Lead weekly sessions, maintain project channels, and perform periodic business reviews.
• Maintain a single source of truth for each account in the versioned record.
• Drive adoption post-launch and identify teams needing engagement.
• Identify expansion opportunities and collaborate with sales on renewals and growth.
• Escalate risks early with a plan and clear communication.
• Translate executive summaries for sponsors and detailed requirements for engineering.

Skills

Client management

Project management

Technical fluency

API contracts

Requirements writing

Executive communication

Travel readiness

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Palantir Foundry

Job description

Job Description

At Surf Air Mobility, we're transforming air mobility. As innovators in aviation, we are at the forefront of creating a more efficient and accessible flying experience. With our commitment to a customer-first approach, advanced software solutions, and electrification, we're pioneering new ways for people to travel, making flying not only faster but more enjoyable. Our passionate team thrives in a collaborative environment where innovation and hard work go hand in hand. Help us shape the future of aviation while working with cutting-edge technologies that are changing the lives of our passengers.

JOB DESCRIPTION: CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
FLSA STATUS: EXEMPT

LOCATION: Remote

About the Role

The Customer Success Manager owns the client relationship end to end for a portfolio of SurfOS accounts across operators, brokers, aircraft owners, and OEMs. The role is the primary point of contact for client leadership on implementation status and adoption. It is also the primary source of requirements and configuration decisions for Surf Air Mobility's internal engineering and Palantir teams.

The Customer Success Manager is expected to understand how each client actually runs its business and to translate that into configuration decisions, scoped requirements, and a prioritized build backlog. The role carries real influence over release scope and sequencing, and is accountable for those decisions to both the client and the internal team.

The portfolio grows over time, and the mix of SurfOS products and client types shifts with it.

Responsibilities: Account Management

• Own the client relationship from contract signature through go-live and into steady state, including the executive sponsor and the department leads who use the product daily.
• Run the operating rhythm: weekly working sessions with client teams, a program channel that stays current, and periodic business reviews that show progress against what was promised.
• Keep a single source of truth for each account. Decisions, scope changes, and open questions live in one versioned record rather than scattered across email and chat.
• Drive adoption after launch. Track who is actually using which tools, identify teams that have stalled, and address the underlying cause.
• Identify expansion opportunities as clients mature on the platform, and work with sales on renewals and growth.
• Escalate clearly and early. When a date is at risk, raise it with a plan attached.
• Communicate to the audience: executive summaries for the sponsor, working detail for the department leads, clean requirements for engineering.

Responsibilities: Implementation and Onboarding

• Lead discovery with the client’s operations, scheduling, maintenance, sales, and finance teams, and document how the business actually runs before proposing how the software should support it.
• Translate those workflows into platform configuration: object and ontology decisions, roles and permissions, terminology mapping, and which modules turn on for which team.
• Write the requirements: stories with clear acceptance criteria that give engineers the reason behind the request, not just the request.
• Own the client backlog in Jira, including prioritization, scope calls, and the trade-off conversations that come with a fixed go-live date.
• Define what the platform replaces. Clients buy SurfOS to consolidate the systems they run on today, so this role owns the cutover picture: which systems come off, what data has to come with them, and what genuinely needs to stay connected.
• Coordinate data migration alongside Surf Air Mobility's engineering and Palantir Foundry teams, and own the mapping decisions that migration depends on.
• Design and deliver training organized by workflow rather than by feature, and build the reference material teams keep using after launch.
• Run UAT, triage what comes out of it, and sequence releases by team so the operation is never left without a way to work.
• Stand up hypercare at go-live and hold the line until the client is steady.

This role carries technical decision-making authority. The Customer Success Manager does not write production code, but does determine how the platform is configured for their accounts and is accountable for those decisions.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years in customer success, account management, implementation, or technical program management at a B2B software company, with direct ownership of named client accounts.
• Aviation background, ideally on the operations side, with a working understanding of how charter operators, brokers, and aircraft owners run day to day: trip planning, crew duty and legality, maintenance status, dispatch, and the pressure of a same-day change.
• Experience carrying a client from contract signature through a production go-live, not handing off after kickoff.
• Technical fluency sufficient to read an API contract, reason about a data model, distinguish a configuration problem from a code problem, and work credibly with engineering teams.
• Requirements writing that engineers can build from without a follow-up meeting.
• Sound judgment on scope, including the ability to separate what a client needs to go live from what can wait, and to hold that line while preserving the relationship.
• Plain, direct communication in writing and in person, with executives and with the people doing the work.
• Willingness to travel for onsites, training, and go-live support.

Preferred Qualifications

• Palantir Foundry experience, particularly ontology design, pipelines, or Workshop applications. This is not a requirement, and training is provided, but it shortens ramp time considerably.
• Hands‑on time in a flight management, scheduling, or dispatch system used by charter or fractional operators.
• Familiarity with the mechanics of charter sourcing.
• Charter brokerage experience, which supports the brokerage accounts in the portfolio.
• Experience with maintenance tracking systems, crew scheduling, or Part 135 compliance and recordkeeping.
• Working knowledge of Jira and Confluence, or a comparable backlog and documentation stack.
• Experience with third-party system integrations across CRM, accounting, or payments.
• A private pilot certificate, dispatcher certificate, or comparable operational aviation background.

Miscellaneous Requirements

• Must be at least 18 years old.
• Must be able to pass a background check [and pre-employment drug screen, if required for this role] per company policy.
• Must be authorized to work in the U.S. per the Immigration Act of 1986.
• Ability to travel 20% for client onsites, training, and go-live support.

Benefits

Competitive Salary: Attractive compensation package based on experience.

Health & Wellness: After 30 days of employment, on the 1st of the following month, you are eligible to sign up for medical, dental, and vision insurance, air ambulance coverage, short-term disability, pet insurance, health savings accounts, and company-paid life insurance.

Retirement Plans: Employees can enroll in our company's 401(k) plan.

Generous PTO: After completion of your probationary period, employees earn 1 day of PTO per month, plus paid holidays throughout the calendar year.

Employee Discounts: After completion of your probationary period, you can access the My ID Travel program, which allows members of your immediate family to participate as well. This program provides travel privileges, including:

• Flight tickets at a significant discount; employees and family members can fly our planes (standby, space available)
• Discounts on hotels and resorts
• Car rentals at reduced rates
• Discounted cruises

This job description is not an exclusive or exhaustive list of all job functions that an employee in this position may be asked to perform from time to time.

At Surf Air Mobility, we are committed to building a more inclusive ecosystem that integrates women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups into the cleantech sector and aerospace industry. We strongly encourage applications from qualified applicants and members of underrepresented groups. Surf Air Mobility is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Surf Air Mobility is governed based on merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.

Surf Air Mobility participates in E-Verify.