Manager, Trial Success

Job Summary

As the Manager, Trial Success, you will lead and develop a team of 6+ Trial Success Managers (TSMs) who run customized trial plans for Enterprise prospects. You will own team results, including trial conversion, trial quality, and TSM growth and retention. You will partner with Sales, Sales Engineering, Business Value Strategy, Product, and Customer Success leaders to drive deal progress and a consistent trial experience.

Key Responsibilities

People Leadership

• Hire and onboard new TSMs, building a hiring plan, running structured interviews, and ramping new hires to full productivity.
• Coach TSMs continuously, holding weekly 1:1s, reviewing live trial work and customer calls, and giving timely feedback.
• Manage performance, setting clear goals and expectations, running goal-setting and performance review cycles, and addressing underperformance.
• Develop careers, creating individual development plans, identifying stretch assignments, and building a succession pipeline.
• Calibrate and reward, participating in calibration, promotion, and compensation cycles with fair, data-backed recommendations.
• Build culture and engagement, fostering an inclusive, high-trust team, monitoring engagement and burnout, and recognizing wins.
• Handle people operations, managing time off, workload balance, coverage plans, and sensitive employee matters.

Team Execution and Operations

• Set the team's goals, KPIs, and operating rhythm, including pipeline reviews, trial health reviews, and weekly close.
• Assign TSM coverage by account priority, segment, and capacity, and rebalance as deals shift.
• Review trial plans, success criteria, and mutual action plans to ensure quality and standardization.
• Inspect trial health, flag risks early, and lead account team strategy sessions to unblock deals.
• Report trial conversion, cycle time, and team health metrics to senior leadership.

Strategy and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Own and evolve the trial methodology, including job aids, communication templates, and playbooks.
• Partner with Sales, SE, BVS, Product, and Support leaders to bring the right resources to the right trial.
• Drive adoption of tools and AI-enabled workflows that increase TSM capacity and trial quality.
• Capture customer and field feedback from trials and share it with Product and Enablement.
• Represent the team in executive trial reviews and customer-facing escalations.
• Champion and model Samsara's cultural principles.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in a client-facing role working with Enterprise clients.
• 3+ years of experience directly managing people.
• Bachelor's degree required.

Required Skills

• Proven ability to hire, coach, develop, and retain high-performing client-facing teams.
• Strong project management and change management experience.
• Expertise in communication strategy, risk management, and executive stakeholder management.
• Ability to set goals, measure performance with data, and manage by metrics.
• Experience influencing cross-functional leaders without direct authority.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication.
• Strong quantitative and presentation skills.
• Technical aptitude with CRM and project management tools.

Nice to Have

• Experience managing or scaling a trial, proof-of-concept, or proof-of-value function in software or hardware.
• Sales experience closing business with large Enterprise organizations.
• Experience supporting large-scale business solutions at Fortune 500 companies.
• Experience building team processes, playbooks, and standards from scratch.
• A strong bias for action, the ability to think big, and insistence on high standards.

Compensation and Benefits

• Annual Base Salary: $115,727 - $175,050 USD
• Total Rewards: flexible working model, professional development stipend, comprehensive health and parental leave plans, and more