Director, Customer Success and Community Engagement
San Francisco, California
Customer Success /
Full-Time /
Hybrid
Who we are
The problem: Every minute matters in fire response. As climate change amplifies the intensity of wildfires—with longer fire seasons, dryer fuels, and faster winds—new ignitions spread faster and put more communities at risk. Today, most wildfires are detected by bystanders and reported via 911, meaning it can take hours to detect a fire, verify its exact location and size, and dispatch first responders. Fire authorities need a faster way to detect, confirm, and pinpoint fires so that they can quickly respond—preventing small flare-ups from becoming devastating infernos.
About Pano: Pano AI is a 100+ person growth stage start-up, headquartered in San Francisco, that is the leader in early wildfire detection and intelligence, helping fire professionals respond to fires faster and more safely—with the right equipment, timely information, and enhanced coordination—so that they can stop a new ignition before it grows. Pano AI combines advanced hardware, software, and artificial intelligence into an easy-to-use, web-based platform. Leveraging a network of ultra-high-definition, 360-degree cameras atop high vantage points, as well as satellite and other data feeds, Pano AI produces a real-time picture of threats in a geographic region and delivers immediate, actionable intelligence.
Pano AI was named as one of the Time100 Most Influential Companies in 2025. MIT Technology Review listed Pano as one of the top 15 climate tech companies to watch in 2024 and Fast Company named Pano AI one of the Top 10 most innovative companies in AI of 2023. We’ve also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNBC News, and a national TV commercial produced by strategic partner T-Mobile. Pano AI’s dozens of government and enterprise customers span 10 states in the U.S., five states in Australia, and BC, Canada, helping protect more than 30 million acres of land. Pano AI has raised$89M in venture capital funding from Giant Ventures, Liberty Mutual Ventures, Tokio Marine Future Fund, Congruent Ventures, Initialized Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and T-Mobile Ventures, s. Learn more athttps://www.pano.ai/.
The Role
Pano AI seeks a director to lead and scale the Community Engagement team, which owns relationships with community organizations such as fire authorities and disaster management agencies. This team is high touch in communication and support with these community agencies and end-users and manages their entire lifecycle from initial identification to outreach, onboarding and driving product engagement and feedback.
Following years of increasingly catastrophic climate disasters, we’re now in the midst of one of the greatest paradigm changes in the past century with the entire disaster preparedness space being re-imagined and restructured. This critical role within Pano’s broader Customer Success organization will help empower and accelerate this change. Your team and you will help build and manage Pano’s “ground game” via establishing a network of engaged end-users who receive and respond to alert notifications from Pano stations.
Working with a cross-functional team of Customer Success Managers (who own the corresponding relationships with our paying customers such as utilities), sales account executives and product managers, you will have ultimate responsibility for Pano’s engagement with the fire community. You will lead the team’s growth, set and measure performance against KPIs, use data driven insights and technology to scale, and present progress to company leadership. You will report to the Head of Customer Success.
This is an ideal job for an outstanding and experienced business leader with a passion for working with customers, exceptional judgment and strategic thinking, and a demonstrated ability to work with other cross-functional leaders in a fast-paced environment. The successful candidate will have stellar communication skills, the ability to lead and grow a team with varying experience levels and a process driven mindset.
What you'll do:
- Build and Lead a World-Class Team
- Recruit, mentor and grow both the individual contributors and first-line managers on the team to excel within their roles and collaboratively as a team
- Set clear performance expectations, provide ongoing coaching, and drive accountability within the team
- Measure Effectiveness and Scale the Team
- Define and manage operational KPIs for the team
- Improve the team’s efficiency and operations with data driven insights and by leveraging technology (such as Gen AI) and tools (such as Salesforce and Hubspot)
- Drive Customer Experience and Outcomes
- Define the fire community user journey – from initial outreach to user support; deploy standardized playbooks for each point in the journey while enhancing customer experience
- Support Pano’s Sales, Marketing and Government Affairs functions - develop and manage both high touch and at scale closed-loop processes to surface fire incident case studies, identify end-user advocates and facilitate locating press events at fire agency locations
- Expertly navigate a SaaS business by skillfully managing the expectations of both your team and fire community users and making thoughtful choices that align business goals with fire community needs
- Enhance Product Adoption and Act as Customer Advocate
- Partner with Analytics and Product team leaders to measure and drive product engagement, using data-driven insights to inform continuous improvement and identify new opportunities
- Facilitate and track adoption of new product features by the fire community and actively contribute to the refinement and development of new features by working closely with Product and Engineering
- Cross-Functional Collaboration and Executive Communication
- Use quantitative and qualitative insights to build and deliver presentations to Pano’s senior leadership, on aspects such as progress against team goals and proactive identification of roadblocks
- Build strong relationships internally and collaborate with other team leaders to identify and drive scalability and cross-functional initiatives
What you'll bring
- 8+ years of professional experience in consulting, customer success or other customer-facing experience, with a strong preference for experience within a SaaS or enterprise software-related field
- 4+ years in a leadership or management role, ideally in an early-stage or growth company. You are a comfortable and confident team leader
- Comfort building and delivering presentations to VP and C-level decision-makers; strong executive presence and ability to synthesize data to inform decisions
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; strong organization and attention to detail
- Outstanding business judgment while dealing with ambiguity and have a knack for “getting things done” in a matrix environment
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment where constant change is the norm and the bar for delivering results is set high
- Empathy for the stakeholders we serve; passionate about climate adaptation and environmental issues, public safety, and technology for good. Background experience in the disaster management or fire community is not required but must be a quick learner to ramp up about this industry
- Travel expectations: Approximately 10% to 20% for customer meetings, fire agency engagements, customer press events and industry events
$150,000 - $172,000 a year
Final salary offered is based upon multiple factors, including individual job-related qualifications, education, experience, knowledge, skills and location. In addition to salary, this position is also eligible for stock options. We offer comprehensive medical, dental and vision insurance, unlimited paid time off, and matching 401k.
Pano is an equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and supporting our team-members regardless of where they come from. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
