Manager, Customer Engineering

The Team + The Role

Pendo’s Customer Engineering team is the technical backbone of our pre- and post-sales motion. The team brings together responsibilities previously split across Customer Success, Technical Account Management, and Solutions Engineering into one full-lifecycle technical ownership model. Customer Engineering is a growth function focused on customer health, retention, expansion, and technical partnership.

As Manager, Customer Engineering, you will lead a team of Customer Engineers and be accountable for their aggregate output while staying close to the work. You will translate team goals into individual assignments, coach direct reports on technical and commercial skills, and run the day-to-day operating rhythm for your pod. This is a people leadership role where your team’s output is your output.

This is a role based in-office in Sydney or Remote in Melbourne.

What this looks like day-to-day

• Team output and account health: Own the aggregate health, retention, and expansion outcomes for the accounts your team manages. Ensure Customer Engineering coverage is adequate, account risks are surfaced early, and no account falls through the cracks.

• People development: Coach and develop P2 through P4 Customer Engineers through regular 1:1s, actionable feedback, performance management, and individual development plans. Identify skill gaps and partner with enablement to address them.

• Operational rhythm: Run the team’s operating cadence, including weekly account reviews, pipeline syncs with Account Directors, escalation triage, and capacity planning. Maintain documentation standards and Salesforce hygiene across the team.

• Hiring and onboarding: Partner with recruiting to hire strong Customer Engineers and own the onboarding experience for new team members. Ensure new hires become productive within expected ramp timelines.

• Account Director partnership: Serve as the management counterpart to Account Director leadership for your pod. Resolve cross-functional friction, align priorities, and ensure the Customer Engineering and Account Director partnership operates in lockstep.

• AI adoption: Set expectations for how your team experiments with and adopts AI tools for account workflows, call prep, and documentation. Model AI usage in your own management workflows and share what works across the team.

Beyond the qualifications, we hire through a specific lens. These aren't buzzwords; they're the things we'll actually look for in how you talk about your work.

You're a builder, not a maintainer.

You're most energized when there isn't a clear path yet, and you get to define it. You don't wait for direction; you identify gaps, shape solutions, and drive them forward. At Pendo, great Managers, Customer Engineering don't just follow instructions; they operate as strategic advisors, influencing decisions, guiding stakeholders, and elevating how we work.

You're AI-curious - genuinely.

You're not using AI tools occasionally. You're rewiring how you work around them. You're faster, sharper, and more prolific because of it, and you bring that energy to everything — how you approach your work, how you prep, how you communicate, how you think. We want someone who sees AI as a multiplier, not a shortcut.

Must-haves

• 5+ years of experience in a customer-facing technical role, such as Solutions Engineering, Technical Account Management, Customer Success Engineering, or Customer Engineering, plus demonstrated people management experience.

• Demonstrated ability to coach and develop technical team members with measurable outcomes.

• Experience managing a team accountable for customer health, retention, and expansion metrics.

• Strong operational