Apptio Customer Success Manager - IBM Kubecost

**Introduction** As a Customer Success Manager, you will serve as the primary customer success technical advisor and trusted advocate for customers using IBM Kubecost. You will be responsible for ensuring customers realize measurable value from their investment by driving product adoption, optimizing use cases, and delivering business outcomes aligned to their strategic goals.  This role combines deep product expertise, technical problem-solving, and customer engagement to build and nurture long-term partnerships that lead to successful renewals and expansion.  **Your role and responsibilities** Customer Success Ownership  * Manage a full portfolio of customers leveraging IBM Kubecost. * Own customer health and adoption outcomes by serving as the primary advocate for assigned accounts.  * Act as the bridge between customer leadership and Apptio internal teams, ensuring alignment on goals, usage, and business value.  Success Planning & Value Realization  * Develop and maintain a Customer Success Plan for each account that outlines objectives, success criteria, adoption milestones, and measurable value targets.  * Coach customers through their journey, from first point of value to advanced use cases, ensuring adoption is embedded within the customer’s processes.  * Partner with the account team to regularly present progress and outcomes to client executives, highlighting realized value and aligning on next-phase opportunities.  Technical Expertise   * Serve as the product expert, ensuring readiness across key capabilities, use cases, and technical integrations for IBM Kubecost.  * Note that this role requires prior experience in Cloud, and specifically in the area of Kubernetes. Candidates without this experience will not be considered. * Provide best practice guidance, solution design input, and hands-on support for operationalizing customer use cases.  * Partner with Customer Success Architects, Technical Account Managers, and Product Management to address technical blockers and optimize the customer experience.  Cross-Functional Collaboration  * Partner with Account Managers, Engagement Managers, and Strategy Advisors to ensure unified execution of the Customer Success Plan.  * Provide insights from customer usage, adoption patterns, and technical challenges back to internal teams to influence roadmap and strategy.  Customer Advocacy  * Develop strong relationships with customer stakeholders and the FinOps Office to ensure adoption is championed internally.  * Represent the voice of the customer to Apptio leadership and product teams.  * Identify and nurture referenceable customers through successful use case adoption and measurable business outcomes.  **Required technical and professional expertise** Experience: Hands-on experience as technical customer success, solutions engineering, consulting, or technical account management role within SaaS or enterprise software.  Domain Knowledge: Good understanding of FinOps framework, CSP savings instruments and its use cases Skills:  * Strong technical acumen with the ability to translate complex product capabilities into customer outcomes. * Proven ability to manage customer relationships, including executive-level communication. * Strong problem-solving, facilitation, and presentation skills. * Ability to interpret complex data and propose effective solutions. * Comfortable driving structured success plans and collaborating with cross-functional teams. * Hands-on experience with leading cloud vendors (AWS, Azure, GCP) and Kubernetes specifically; certification in AWS Practitioner or Azure AZ-900 preferred. * Plan, execute, and track Cloud Savings Programs across CSPs for new and existing customers. * Demonstrated track record in increasing customer FinOps maturity. * Lead discussions and manage commitment-based discounts across all savings instruments. * Leverage the IBM Kubecost platform to analyze customer business objectives and deliver reporting, dashboards, and savings insights. * Deep expertise in AWS rate optimization, including Savings Plans and Reserved Instances. Tools: Experience with Gainsight, Salesforce, or similar Customer Success platforms a plus.  Experience with data analytics tools such as Excel, Tableau, and Power BI.  Mindset: Outcome-driven, collaborative, and passionate about enabling customers to succeed.  **Preferred technical and professional experience** Industry Research Skills Exposure to conducting research on industry trends, market dynamics, and key players to stay informed and maintain a thorough understanding of the business landscape. • Emerging Technology Awareness: Familiarity with emerging technologies and innovations that may impact the industry, with the ability to analyze their potential applications and implications. • Market Analysis Techniques: Exposure to applying market analysis techniques to identify opportunities for growth and improvement, and to inform business decisions. Note that the budget for this position is on the first half of the overall salary range. The full range reflects the expansion opportunities across the life of the role. IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.