About this role.
Sonatype is seeking a Federal Customer Success Manager to lead post-sales adoption, value realization, retention, and expansion support for a portfolio primarily composed of U.S. government customers. The role uses a scaled, signal-driven engagement model informed by customer health, product telemetry, usage data, and lifecycle milestones. The successful candidate will guide federal technical stakeholders on DevOps, CI/CD, artifact management, open-source security, and software supply chain practices while coordinating with Sales, Support, Product, Engineering, and Services. This is a proactive customer-success position rather than a reactive support role, with strong expectations for disciplined portfolio execution and responsible GenAI use. Candidates need 4–6 years of relevant federal customer-facing experience and must be U.S. civilians.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
4/5Pace & Pressure
4/5Autonomy Level
4/5Communication Load
5/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader US market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I would use a repeatable prioritization model combining health scores, product-usage trends, lifecycle stage, renewal timing, stakeholder engagement, and mission impact. Accounts showing adoption decline, executive misalignment, or near-term renewal risk would receive immediate attention, while lower-risk customers would receive structured, scalable guidance through campaigns, office hours, and success-plan milestones.
I would begin by identifying the agency’s mission objectives, current development workflow, security requirements, and measurable success criteria. I would then map relevant platform capabilities to outcomes such as faster policy-compliant releases, improved component visibility, reduced remediation time, or stronger SBOM practices, and establish milestones with usage and outcome metrics to demonstrate progress.
I set clear engagement expectations and focus conversations on outcomes, adoption barriers, risk indicators, and next milestones. When an issue requires deep troubleshooting, I involve Support or Services with concise context and remain accountable for coordinating the customer experience, follow-through, and business impact rather than attempting to own every technical case myself.
I would tailor communication to each stakeholder’s role while maintaining a shared success plan and common outcome metrics. I would document decisions, owners, dependencies, and timelines clearly, use structured checkpoints to resolve misalignment early, and connect technical activities to agency security, delivery, and mission objectives.
I would use approved GenAI tools to accelerate account research, meeting preparation, follow-up drafts, success-plan structure, and synthesis of non-sensitive internal information. I would validate all outputs, apply my own judgment, follow data-handling policies, and never submit customer-sensitive, regulated, or controlled information to tools that are not authorized for that use.
Sonatype is privileged to work with customers who rely on us to improve the quality, security, and speed of their software development lifecycle. The Federal Customer Success Manager (CSM) is the strategic post-sales advisor responsible for helping federal customers realize measurable value from their investment in Sonatype by driving adoption, retention, growth, and long-term customer advocacy.
Federal agencies rely on Sonatype to secure and accelerate software delivery for mission-critical applications. As a Federal CSM, you’ll work with organizations modernizing how the government builds software, helping technical teams adopt practices that improve security, developer productivity, and software supply chain resilience.
As a Federal Customer Success Manager (CSM), you will manage a portfolio primarily consisting of U.S. government customers with select State, Local, and Education customers through a scaled engagement model, using customer health, product usage, and lifecycle milestones to prioritize proactive engagement.
Your goal is to accelerate time-to-value, drive adoption and measurable outcomes, increase renewal confidence, and surface growth opportunities in partnership with the broader Sonatype account team, including Sales, Product, Engineering, and Marketing teams.
This role is not intended to be reactive “shadow support.” You will be expected to deliver proactive, outcomes-driven guidance, disciplined execution, and consistent customer leadership, while knowing when to pull in deeper subject-matter expertise as needed.
A defining expectation of this role is the use of GenAI as a regular part of your workflow. You are expected to use GenAI tools as a thought partner to improve the quality, clarity, and strategic rigor of your analysis, planning, and communication, while validating outputs and applying sound judgment.
Customer Outcomes and Value Realization
Lead structured customer motions to accelerate onboarding success, adoption, and time-to-value.
Help customers connect Sonatype capabilities to their desired outcomes and success criteria, translating intent into clear next steps and measurable progress.
Provide proactive guidance on best practices, common pitfalls, and practical steps to improve customer success with Sonatype solutions.
Maintain a clear view of customer health and progress, identifying risk signals early and driving mitigation actions in partnership with internal teams as needed.
Bring strong product and domain credibility to guide best practices and prevent pitfalls (engaging Support and Services appropriately) while staying focused on outcomes, value realization, and forward momentum rather than becoming a reactive Q&A channel.
Scaled Engagement and Signal-Driven Execution
Operate in a scaled engagement model, prioritizing actions based on telemetry, usage signals, customer intelligence, and lifecycle milestones.
Use repeatable engagement approaches that deliver a consistent, high-quality customer experience across your portfolio.
Document key insights, actions, and outcomes to ensure continuity, clarity, and effective internal coordination.
Retention & Growth Support
Partner effectively with Sales, Sales Engineering, Support, Product, and Services to orchestrate the right expertise at the right time without creating unnecessary escalation churn.
Serve as a voice of the customer by capturing and sharing patterns, feedback, and friction points that improve product experience and customer outcomes.
This role focuses on post-sale customer experience. Commercial discussions, pricing, and contract matters are managed by the appropriate sales and contracting teams and are outside the scope of this role.
Reflexive GenAI Usage as a Standard
Use GenAI as a thought partner to improve the quality, clarity, and strategic rigor of analysis, planning, and communication, while validating outputs and applying sound judgment.
Apply GenAI to accelerate high-leverage work such as customer preparation, follow-up quality, success planning, messaging, and internal summaries. So you spend more time driving outcomes and less time on manual overhead.
Follow company guidance on responsible AI usage and data handling.
What Success Looks Like
Customers reach value more quickly and demonstrate measurable adoption and outcomes.
Engagement is proactive and structured, not dominated by reactive troubleshooting.
Renewal confidence increases through evidence of value, stakeholder alignment, and early risk mitigation.
Expansion opportunities are consistently identified and shared with Sales with clear customer context.
Advocacy and referenceability increase through identified champions, proof points, and coordinated customer storytelling.
Execution is high-quality and repeatable, enabling scale across a broader portfolio.
What We Are Looking For
You are a US civilian
4-6 years of experience in Federal Customer Success, Technical Account Management, Solutions Consulting, Support Engineering, or similar customer-facing roles in direct support of US government customers.
Experience working with civilian agencies, DoD, or Intelligence Community customers
Ability to navigate complex stakeholder environments including government employees, contractors, and systems integrators.
Technical aptitude and credibility within modern software development lifecycles (DevOps, CI/CD, artifact management, OSS governance/security).
Strong customer-facing communication skills with the ability to educate, influence, and lead structured conversations at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
Comfort operating in a fast-paced environment that requires prioritization, focus, and consistent execution across a portfolio.
Demonstrated ownership, bias for action, and ability to manage multiple priorities with disciplined execution.
Additional Prefences
Experience working in FedRAMP, Air-Gapped, or regulated environments.
Experience working with State, Local, and Education customers.
Existing experience with software supply chain management.
Strong GenAI fluency and a demonstrated habit of using AI tools to improve execution, quality, and speed.
Things We Are Proud Of
5 Visionary in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Application Security Testing!
2025 AI Compliance Solution of the Year – AI Breakthrough Awards
2025 DEVIES Award to our SBOM Manager for a new product for its innovation and impact in developer technology
2024 Industry Leader in Forrester-Wave for Software Composition Analysis (2024 Q4 report)
Constellation AST Shortlist: Sonatype has been listed on the Constellation ShortList™ for Application Security Testing for 2024
Data Breakthrough Awards: Sonatype was announced as a 2024 winner in the “Open Source Data Solution of the Year.”
SD Times: Best in Show Security
Fast Company Best Workplaces for Innovators 2024
The Herd Top 100 Private Software Companies 2024.
Diversity & Inclusion Working Groups
Parental Leave Policy
Paid Volunteer Time Off (VTO)
Compensation
Additional Information
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