Director of Customer Success

About Valency Valency Systems is a small, dynamic team of engineers, scientists, and researchers building the global hub for the agentic research era. We're based in Berkeley, California, and we're building something that matters. If you care about open science, advancing research at the speed of thought, and using AI to accelerate discovery, we'd love to talk. Our team is hybrid. We come together in person at least 3 days a week, with the option for 2 days of remote work. About the Role Valency is a PLG company. Researchers land on our platform through a free academic tier — no sales call, no gatekeeping. What happens after that first signup decides everything: whether they activate, whether they stick around, whether they become the reason a lab champions an enterprise Bond deal. That is a very different problem from managing a handful of enterprise accounts, and most companies hire two different people to solve it. Right now we need one. You will be Valency's first leader owning the full post-signup lifecycle, reporting directly to the founders and senior leadership. There is no existing function to inherit — no activation playbook for free-tier users, no health scoring, no defined motion for converting an engaged academic user into a paid relationship or an enterprise opportunity. You are building it from the ground up. This is a builder and operator role. In the near term you will be in the activation data yourself and on enterprise account calls yourself. As the team grows, you will hire and lead the people who do both with you. What You'll Do Own the free academic tier funnel end-to-end — activation, engagement, retention — and define what "activated" actually means for a free-tier user Design and continuously test onboarding flows, in-product nudges, and lifecycle messaging that get free-tier researchers to value fast Build the motion for converting engaged free-tier users and academic champions into paid upgrades or enterprise Bond opportunities Design Valency's customer success playbook for national lab and enterprise accounts: onboarding, health scoring, QBR cadence, escalation paths, renewal process Build deep relationships with technical champions (research computing leads, staff scientists, lab administrators) and translate their evolving needs back into product and GTM priorities Own the numbers on both sides — free-to-paid conversion rate on the PLG side, net revenue retention and expansion on the enterprise side Partner with product and engineering on self-serve onboarding UX, and with sales on a clean handoff from closed deal to enterprise onboarding Define and track the metrics that matter across both motions — activation rate, conversion rate, time-to-value, NRR — and report on them to the founders Hire and build the team — both activation/lifecycle and customer success roles — as the free-tier user base and enterprise account base grow Who You Are You have owned activation, retention, or lifecycle metrics for a PLG or freemium product — you know how to move an activation curve, not just describe one You have also led customer success or account management for technical B2B or infrastructure accounts through renewal and expansion — this is genuinely a hybrid role and we need both muscles, not one specialist stretching into the other You think in funnels and cohorts as naturally as you think in relationships You understand research culture, or can learn it fast — enough to earn trust with a free-tier grad student and a skeptical national lab research computing team in the same week You build systems, not just relationships or dashboards. You can stand up an activation playbook, a health-scoring model, and a conversion motion where none existed You are comfortable being the analyst in the activation data and the strategist on the enterprise call — this role is hands-on before it is a management role You communicate fluently about activation and revenue in the same conversation, with users and with founders Helpful but not required Experience with freemium or free-tier product motions aimed at a non-commercial user base (students, academics, researchers) Experience with technical, API-first, or MCP-based products Familiarity with academic publishing, research infrastructure, or national lab procurement Prior experience building a CS or growth/activation function from zero at an early-stage startup Background in a scientific discipline Show Us Your Work An activation or retention curve you moved, and what you changed to move it Accounts or a book of business you've owned — retention and expansion outcomes you can point to A playbook, process, or system you built where one didn't exist before Examples of turning a free or self-serve user into a paying customer or enterprise opportunity Why Join Us • Meaningful challenges on a product that's growing fast and reaching real users • A small, high-trust team where your decisions have outsized impact • A culture that values excellence and invests seriously in the people who drive it Compensation, Benefits & Equity We offer a competitive a benefits, salary and equity package including a 401(k) with matching Work Authorization Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.