CSTA Manager, UK

We’re not just building better tech. We’re rewriting how data moves and what the world can do with it. With Confluent, data doesn’t sit still. Our platform puts information in motion, streaming in near real-time so companies can react faster, build smarter, and deliver experiences as dynamic as the world around them.

It takes a certain kind of person to join this team. Those who ask hard questions, give honest feedback, and show up for each other. No egos, no solo acts. Just smart, curious humans pushing toward something bigger, together.

One Confluent. One Team. One Data Streaming Platform.

About the Role:

Confluent is searching for a high-performing individual to be a Manager within our Customer Success Technical Architecture (CSTA) organization. The ideal candidate will be able to easily blend between technical problem solving and mentorship for their direct reports and organizational strategy and growth discussions across the broader CSTA leadership team.
The CSTA Manager will be responsible for managing a team of 6-12 CSTAs who are technical advisors and advocates for multiple customer accounts within one or more Sales territories. The CSTA Manager reports into the CSTA theater leader, sits on the CSTA leadership team, and contributes to defining, evolving, and running the various programs and strategies we offer to Platinum and Premier customers. The CSTA Manager, alongside others from Sales, CSM, and SE, provides strategic governance within their assigned territory or territories.

What You Will Do:

• Set clear goals and expectations for your team and manage performance and achievement of goals. Goals and expectations will either be aligned to CSTA theater goals, or based on specific territory or account priorities.

• Actively support the career development of your direct reports. CSTA Managers are expected to have bi-weekly (or more frequent) one on ones with their direct reports to provide coaching, mentoring, and career guidance. Once a quarter the CSTA Manager should have a quarterly check-in with each direct report, providing feedback on their performance and discussing professional development opportunities.

• Be responsible for recruiting and hiring for open positions, and for ensuring successful onboarding of new hires.

• Facilitate a team meeting with your direct reports on a regular basis. This is a time for the team to build stronger relationships, learn from one another, and for the manager to share relevant updates.

• Work with the global CSTA practice lead and their peers on programs to improve the customer and employee experience, and to drive efficiency and scale.

• Contribute to global learning & development programs to ensure that we are aligning best practices and that CSTA leadership is sending consistent messages regarding expectations and role definition.

• Ensure the learning & development of yourself and your team, particularly in regards to CSTA technical knowledge, new product/feature introduction and soft skills.

• Work closely with peers in Sales and CSG to ensure that all territories are successful with accumulating new business, renewals, and expansion. This includes monitoring & taking action on key reports and dashboards.

• Manage available budget and the Platinum and Premier forecast for your territories to plan for headcount, so that CSTAs can be ramped and available for existing and anticipated accounts. CSTA Managers are responsible for approving or declining exceptions to the Platinum/Premier pricing in their territory, and for making CSTA account assignments in designated systems. Granted exceptions should not drive the need for new headcount.

• Meet weekly with Sales and CSG peers within your territories to discuss new business, risk, and opportunity and to stay aligned. CSTA Managers should attend weekly forecast calls and regular QBRs for their territories.

• Be prepared to be a point of escalation for customers, and be ready to join internal and external calls to address risk within customer situations. The CSTA Manager will also be responsible for escalating to the theater CSTA leader, enacting other formal escalation processes and creating formal risk/escalation documentation.

• CSTA Managers should ensure that Sales representatives in their territories are equipped to position the value of Platinum and Premier and are setting expectations correctly with prospects.

What You Will Bring:

• Bachelor's and/or Masters degree in business, computer science or engineering, mathematics, or other quantitative field

• Demonstrated success in management within a technical field role for a product / SaaS company with enterprise customers

• Excellent interpersonal & communication skills (both verbal and written) and an ability to liaise and facilitate with key internal and external stakeholders

• Ability to manage stakeholder escalations to mutually agreeable outcomes

• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple customer situations at a time while paying strict attention to detail and delivering results across multiple initiatives such as driving expansion, customer satisfaction, feature adoption, and retention

• Collaborative spirit, outstanding consulting & relationship management skills and ability to rapidly switch context

• Exceptional coach and mentor of junior through senior technical talent

• Ability to analyze and build out a plan for your territories for CSTA coverage

• Ability to learn new technical concepts quickly, as well as a strong interest in doing so!

• Experience working in a fast-paced, dynamic, 100% distributed team

What Gives You an Edge:

• Confluent Developer or Administrator certifications (Confluent Certification for Apache Kafka)

• Experience with companies that are using Apache Flink

• Experience helping customers build distributed systems or streaming solutions that use Apache Kafka alongside technologies such as Spark, Flink, Hadoop, Cassandra, etc

• Experience working in a Customer Success organization

Ready to build what's next? Let’s get in motion.

Come As You Are

Belonging isn’t a perk here. It’s the baseline. We work across time zones and backgrounds, knowing the best ideas come from different perspectives. And we make space for everyone to lead, grow, and challenge what’s possible.

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Employment decisions are based on job-related criteria, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other classification protected by law.