Principal Customer Success Manager, Aerospace, Propulsion & Energy

Location: US Remote

Department: Customer Success

Location Type: REMOTE

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

The Role

What Youll Do

• Own a strategic book. Be accountable for retention and growth across a focused set of nTops most strategic accounts, with a net revenue retention target.
• Run every account as a program. Treat each customer agreement as a 12- to 24-month engineering program with defined scope, deliverables, and milestones. Track progress, keep both nTop and the customer accountable, and tie results to the outcomes customers care about: schedule, performance, and win rate. Every renewal should be backed by results the customer has already seen.
• Lead complex renewals. Forecast early, build the business case, and negotiate six- and seven-figure renewals and multi-year agreements.
• Lead the pricing transition. Actively move your customers from seat-based licenses to platform and capacity-based pricing, working closely with the Strategic Account Director.
• Quarterback onsite engineering engagements. Travel to customer sites to lead engineering sprints and services engagements, aligning customer stakeholders, nTops Field Solutions Engineers, and the outcomes the engagement needs to deliver.
• Build relationships at the top and across the organization. Develop executive sponsors among engineering and program leadership, run executive business reviews, and stay close to the engineers, IT, and procurement teams who keep deployments healthy.
• Find and shape expansion. Identify new programs, divisions, and use cases inside your accounts, and partner with the Strategic Account Director to turn them into expansion deals.
• Be technically credible. Understand how your customers design and simulate well enough to diagnose adoption blockers, run workflow conversations with engineers, and bring in Field Solutions Engineering at the right moment.
• Lead the AI conversation after the sale. Help customers see how nTop fits into the AI and agentic engineering workflows theyre building, and turn that into the next phase of the relationship.
• See risk early. Track account health, flag issues before they reach the renewal, and lead escalations when they happen.
• Work as one team. Partner closely with the Strategic Account Director, Field Solutions Engineering, Customer Success, Support, and Product. We share relationships across accounts because the goal is nTop winning, not territory.
• Raise the bar for strategic account management. Use AI tools to work faster, keep account health and renewal forecasts accurate in Salesforce, and help define how nTop runs its most strategic accounts.

What Success Looks Like

• First 6 months: You’ve set clear program plans and identified executive sponsors at each of your accounts, your renewal forecast is accurate and visible, and youve led your first major renewal and onsite engagement.
• First 12 months: Your book is hitting its net revenue retention target, youve moved key accounts onto platform pricing, youve sourced meaningful expansion opportunities with the Strategic Account Director, and youve helped define the playbook for how nTop runs strategic accounts.

Required Experience

• A track record of owning a renewal number for large enterprise SaaS accounts, with individual renewals of $1M+, typically 8+ years in customer success or strategic account management.
• Experience working with enterprise customers in complex, multi-stakeholder organizations.
• Experience in a post-sale role with engineering software (CAD, CAE/simulation, PLM, or adjacent engineering and digital engineering software such as MBSE or design automation), working specifically with engineering leaders (directors and VPs of engineering, chief engineers, and heads of digital engineering).
• Technical aptitude. You understand the engineering software ecosystem and how engineers move from CAD to simulation and back, and youre comfortable leading workflow conversations with engineers on a deep, technical product.
• Executive presence. Youre as credible across the table from a VP of Engineering or program executive as you are in a working session with engineers, and you build trust with senior leaders over years, not quarters.
• Commercial ownership. Youve negotiated large renewals and multi-year agreements yourself, not just managed the relationship around them.
• Program management discipline. You’ve run complex, multi-month customer engagements with defined scope, deliverables, and milestones, and you know how to manage scope, timelines, and stakeholders so commitments are delivered.
• U.S. Person status as defined by ITAR, due to export control requirements.
• At least 30% travel to customer sites, onsite engineering engagements, and industry events, with heavier stretches around key engagements.

Strongly preferred (we dont expect all of these)

• Experience working with airframers, engine OEMs, or energy manufacturers, and knowing how they operate: who holds budget, how programs fund tools year over year, and how procurement and export control shape a renewal. Existing relationships at companies such as Lockheed Martin, RTX/Pratt & Whitney, GE Aerospace, or Siemens Energy are a strong plus.
• Experience moving customers from seat-based licensing to platform, usage, or value-based pricing, or managing accounts for AI, simulation-driven, or design automation products.

Also a plus

• Hands-on familiarity with nTop or similar tools, enough to use the product at a high level.
• Active security clearance (Secret or higher).
• Exposure to additive manufacturing, generative design, or advanced manufacturing.
• Experience at a high-growth startup or scale-up.
• A degree in engineering, physics, applied math, computer science, or materials science.

How you work

• You see a renewal as the result of value delivered all year, not a negotiation that starts 90 days out.
• Youre proactive. You raise risks and opportunities before anyone asks.
• Youre low-ego and collaborative. You win by pulling in the right people at the right time and making the team around you better.
• You own your results.

Compensation

• Compensation: the on-target earnings (OTE) range for this role is $177,000 to $224,000 USD, plus equity and benefits. Final compensation depends on seniority and level of industry experience.