Senior Customer Success Manager – Federal

Remote from: USA
Salary, yearly, USD: 160,000
Department: Customer Success
Employment type: Full Time,
Job posted: 28 May 2026
Apply before: 28 Jun 2026
Experience level: Senior
Views / Applies: 20 / 4

About company

About Chainguard

Securing the software supply chain with hardened container images and comprehensive supply chain security solutions.

Computer & Network Security
2021

Actively Hiring

AI Summary

Chainguard is seeking a Senior Customer Success Manager to serve as the primary post-sales contact for Federal customers. The role involves leading onboarding, driving adoption, and building relationships with stakeholders from technicians to CISOs. The ideal candidate has 5+ years in public sector customer success roles and domain knowledge in supply chain security or DevSecOps. They must be proactive, autonomous, and comfortable building processes in a startup environment. The salary minimum is $160,000, with the maximum not provided.

Role DNA

Job Complexity

Easy Hard

Pace & Pressure

Relaxed Fast-paced

Autonomy Level

Guided Full Ownership

Communication Load

Independent Highly Collaborative

AI Insight The role requires deep technical knowledge, stakeholder management across multiple levels, and the ability to build new processes in a startup, making it challenging.

Salary Analysis

AI Insight The offered salary minimum of $160,000 is competitive for a senior federal CSM role, though the missing maximum suggests potential for higher pay based on experience. Market median for similar roles is around $175,000.

Key Skills

Customer Success Federal DevSecOps Supply Chain Security Stakeholder Management Onboarding Account Management Cross-functional Collaboration Technical Support Startup Experience

Cover Letter Sample

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am excited to apply for the Senior Customer Success Manager - Federal position at Chainguard. With over 5 years of experience in public sector customer success and a strong background in DevSecOps and supply chain security, I am confident in my ability to drive customer outcomes and build lasting relationships.

In my previous role, I led onboarding for federal clients, reduced churn by 20%, and collaborated cross-functionally to resolve complex issues. I thrive in autonomous, fast-paced environments and have a proven track record of creating new processes to improve customer experience.

I am passionate about open source security and eager to contribute to Chainguard's mission. Thank you for considering my application.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

Possible Interview Questions

Describe your experience managing federal customers and how you navigated unique compliance or security requirements.

In my previous role, I managed several federal accounts requiring FedRAMP compliance. I worked closely with security teams to ensure our platform met their standards and coordinated with legal for contract reviews. I also conducted regular check-ins with CISOs to address any concerns proactively.

How do you prioritize multiple customer issues when resources are limited?

I use a risk-based prioritization framework, assessing impact on customer's business and urgency. For example, I categorize issues as critical, high, or low. Critical issues get immediate attention, while low-priority items are scheduled. I also communicate transparently with customers about timelines.

Can you give an example of a time you had to build a new process from scratch?

At my last startup, we lacked a structured onboarding process. I created a step-by-step guide with milestones, automated check-ins, and feedback loops. This reduced time-to-value by 30% and improved customer satisfaction scores.

How do you handle a situation where a customer is unhappy with product performance?

First, I listen empathetically to understand their concerns. Then, I collaborate with engineering to diagnose the issue and set realistic expectations. I provide regular updates and ensure they feel supported. For example, once a customer faced latency issues; I worked with the team to resolve it and offered a discount as a goodwill gesture.

What strategies do you use to drive product adoption among federal clients?

I start by understanding their specific goals and pain points. Then, I schedule training sessions tailored to their workflows, provide best practice guides, and set up success milestones. I also leverage customer champions to advocate within their organization.

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 Federal 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:

Customer Onboarding: Lead the technical onboarding process for new customers. Partner with customers, pre-sales, and post-sales teams to understand requirements, goals, and challenges to formulate an onboarding plan.
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 Public Sector 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, our 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 our executive team or c-suite in customer 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 – this is a new team at Chainguard where you will be required to both deviate from established procedure and often build entirely new process 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, security infrastructure, regulatory compliance requirements, vulnerability management, software development lifecycle

Compensation: up to $160,000 base salary + bonus (depending on experience)

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.
∞ 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.

Apply now >