Customer Success Engineer

Element451 is the AI-native CRM and agent platform built for higher education. As we scale, we're building the technical layer behind Customer Success, so Account Managers can move faster, escalations resolve quicker, and customers get confident answers. As a Customer Success Engineer, you operate like a post-sale Solutions Engineer embedded in CS. You'll bring technical depth to complex customer questions, triage and resolve escalations before they hit Engineering, and ensure clean, well-documented handoffs from Implementation.

What You'll Own

Implementation-to-CS Handoff Quality

• Partner with Implementation at the close of onboarding to review handoff artifacts (configuration summaries, integration overviews, known issues, open items, key workflows) and flag anything that needs resolution before CS takes full ownership.
• Participate in handoff calls when complexity warrants it, ensuring the receiving Account Manager understands what was built, why, and what to watch for in the first 30-90 days.
• Proactively identify configuration risks or adoption blockers that could become retention issues and escalate them to the right internal owners before they surface as customer problems.

AM Technical Enablement

• Serve as the primary technical resource for the Account Manager team: the first stop for platform questions, configuration issues, workflow logic, reporting questions, and integration-related troubleshooting.
• Join customer calls when technical depth materially changes the outcome, including QBRs, escalations, complex workflow discussions, and AI strategy sessions.
• Coach Account Managers on platform fundamentals, AI agent logic, and integration concepts so they can independently handle more complexity over time.
• Build and maintain internal enablement assets: troubleshooting guides, FAQs, how-it-works explainers, and repeatable patterns that raise the technical floor across the CS org.

Technical Discovery & Solutioning

• Lead technical discovery on post-go-live needs and translate vague pain into concrete requirements and a recommended approach.
• Provide solution options with clear tradeoffs (configuration approach, workflow design, data implications, effort and risk) so Account Managers and customers can make decisions confidently.
• Facilitate technical working sessions with Enrollment Ops and IT stakeholders to unblock decisions, clarify requirements, and align on next steps.
• Produce lightweight solution artifacts, including requirements summaries, proposed approaches, dependencies, risks, and definitions of done.
• Own post-go-live technical solutioning across two tiers: Tier 1 (configuration, troubleshooting, workflow guidance) delivered directly, and Tier 2 (new integrations, significant build, complex projects) scoped and handed to Professional Services for execution.

Escalation Triage & Resolution

• Own technical escalations from CS: diagnose platform, configuration, and workflow issues, identify root cause, and drive resolution, often without Engineering involvement.
• Coordinate with Support and Engineering on issues that require product-level investigation, translating technical findings into clear updates.
• Establish a clear escalation operating rhythm (intake, prioritization, expectations, communication norms) so Account Managers know what to expect.
• Track recurring escalation themes and surface them as structured signals to Product, Support, and Implementation.

Platform Fluency & Best Practices

• Stay current on releases and proactively brief the CS team on what changed, what matters, and how to use it with customers.
• Maintain deep fluency across Element451: CRM configuration, student journey logic, AI agent behavior, communication workflows, application management, and reporting.
• Develop and document best-practice patterns for common higher ed use cases to support Account Manager conversations and QBR recommendations.

Cross-Functional Contribution

• Act as a connector across CS, Implementation, Support, and Product, translating real customer friction into actionable internal feedback.
• Help CS leadership identify systemic issues across the portfolio and propose fixes that scale.
• Contribute to a durable knowledge base: document what you learn, standardize what you solve, and reduce the cost of every future escalation.

The Account Manager owns the client. The Customer Success Engineer owns the technical layer behind the client. In practice, the CSE supports from behind and steps into client conversations when technical depth is needed.

What You'll Need

• 4-7 years in a technical, customer-facing role in B2B SaaS, such as Customer Success Engineer, Technical Account Manager, Solutions Consultant, or an implementation-adjacent CS role.
• Direct experience with a higher education CRM and the workflows it supports (Element451, Slate, Salesforce Education Cloud, Ellucian CRM Advance, TargetX, or similar strongly preferred).
• Strong technical discovery skills: you can move from vague pain to concrete requirements to a recommended approach.
• Deep command of CRM configuration thinking: objects and fields, segmentation logic, workflow and journey design, and reporting implications.
• Enough integration and API literacy to diagnose symptoms, speak credibly with IT teams, and understand what's happening in a broken data sync.
• Ability to lead technical working sessions with Enrollment Ops and IT and translate outcomes back to the Account Manager team clearly.
• Excellent communicator who can make technical concepts accessible to non-technical audiences without losing precision.
• Coaching mindset: you get energy from making the people around you more capable and reducing dependency over time.