Manager, Trial Success

About the role

This role leads the Trial Success team, which runs customized enterprise trials so prospects see full product value and are ready for implementation. It manages a team of 6+ Trial Success Managers, owning trial conversion, trial quality, and team growth and retention.

What you'll do

• Build the hiring plan, run structured interviews, make hiring decisions, and ramp new TSMs with a 30/60/90 plan.
• Hold weekly 1:1s, review live trial work and customer calls, and give specific feedback on value-based selling, change management and executive communication.
• Set clear goals, run performance review cycles, and address underperformance early with documented improvement plans when needed.
• Create individual development plans, identify stretch assignments, and build a succession pipeline for TSM and leadership roles.
• Participate in calibration, promotion and compensation cycles with fair, data-backed recommendations.
• Foster an inclusive, high-trust team, monitor engagement and burnout, recognize wins and retain top talent.
• Manage time off, workload balance, coverage plans and sensitive employee matters with People/HR.
• Set team 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 in Accord for 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.
• 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 each 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.
• Shadow a small number of high-stakes trials, train new hires, and act as escalation point for strategic deals.
• Coach TSMs by reviewing live trial work and customer calls and giving timely feedback.

What you'll need

• 10+ years of experience in a client-facing role working with Enterprise clients (strategic consulting, account management, project management, or sales).
• 3+ years of experience directly managing people.
• Bachelor's degree.
• 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 (conversion, cycle time, pipeline).
• Experience influencing cross-functional leaders without direct authority.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication; able to convey complex ideas concisely.
• Strong quantitative and presentation skills.
• Technical aptitude with CRM and project management tools.
• Comfort in an unstructured, fast-paced, change-heavy environment.

Nice to have

• SaaS or technology experience.
• PMP certification.
• 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.

Benefits listed by Samsara

• Base salary and performance-based bonus/variable pay
• Equity for eligible roles
• Flexible remote working model
• Professional development stipend
• Comprehensive health and parental leave plans

Tools & skills mentioned