Director of Customer Experience

Job description

Sauce is a premier restaurant technology platform that helps businesses grow with our Commission-Free Delivery & Pickup structure and proprietary delivery optimization technology. We are serving a 105 billion dollar US local restaurant business. Headquartered in NYC and Tel-Aviv, Sauce wants restaurants to fulfill their highest potential, this means giving local establishments everything they need to connect directly with their customers. The Sauce team pools together decades of restaurant tech experience, along with seasoned tech, sales, marketing, product and operations executives who produce an industry-changing delivery system for successful local restaurants and chains. We're looking for a seasoned Director of Customer Experience — an experienced operator who owns the full client experience end-to-end, from product quality through support and retention, and who works hand-in-hand with Product and Sales to shape what we build and how we sell it. This is a leadership role reporting directly to the CEO, based in our NYC office (3x+/week in-person). You'll unify Customer Success and Support into a single CX function, build and manage regional teams and their managers, and act as the voice of the client inside product development. This is a strategic and tactical role in equal measure — you set the vision, and you're also in the weeds building the tools that make it real. You’ll oversee the entire customer experience journey from onboarding to success and support departments Success means a client experience so strong that retention, health scores, and product quality all move together — and Sauce becomes the obvious platform restaurants can't imagine running without. ### What You’ll Own *Team & Customer Outcomes* - Own team-level retention, health scores, and overall client experience across CS and support teams. - Lead and develop the unified CX function as the primary people manager — including directly managing regional managers. - Build the customer health scoring system and the full view of client data that feeds it. - Ensure every customer's experience — product, support, and success — feels seamless and consistent. - Define the voice of Sauce for the customers and their customers *Build + Do (Strategic + Tactical)* - Personally engage on high-stakes accounts, escalations, and after-hours crisis moments when senior presence is needed. - Build regional playbooks and manage the regional structure as we expand into new markets. - Model urgency, ownership, and outcome-driven problem-solving in a high-pressure environment. *Product Partnership* - Work directly alongside Product (partnering closely with our Product Lead) to qualify features before they reach clients. - Bring the full picture of client data and feedback into product planning and release cycles. - Deeply understand our product in the food delivery domain — you're not just relaying feedback, you're evaluating product decisions yourself. *AI & Automation (Hands-On)* - Build your own dashboards, systems, and automations — a true "ops co-pilot" for the function — without relying on R&D resources. - Prototype, deploy, and iterate yourself. *Cross-Functional Collaboration* - Partner closely with Sales (with our Sales Lead) to align client expectations from the first sales conversation through the full customer lifecycle. - Partner with Product on qualification, feedback loops, and release readiness. - Keep communication open across functions so teams move in sync, even under pressure. ### What Success Looks Like *First 90 Days* - Develop a full picture of the current CX landscape — CS, Support, health scores, and client data. - Build strong working relationships with Product and Sales leadership. - Ship at least one self-built dashboard or automation that gives the org better visibility into client health. *First Year* - Build out a strong regional management structure with clear ownership and accountability. - Establish a health-score-driven retention engine that ties client data directly to product and sales decisions. - Become the trusted internal voice of the client — shaping what gets built and how it's sold. - Prove the CX function as a strategic driver of growth, not just a service function. ### What You Bring *Must-Have* - 6–10 years in Customer Success, Customer Experience, or Support leadership, with 4–6 years leading teams including regional or other managers. - Experience with SMB customers in a high-pressure, fast-moving operational environment — restaurant, food delivery, or food tech strongly preferred; other high-pressure industries acceptable. **SaaS-only backgrounds without operational intensity are not a fit for this role.** - Proven experience building customer health scoring systems and working with full client data sets. - Direct experience partnering with Product — qualifying features, shaping releases, understanding a product deeply enough to evaluate it. - Strategic and tactical in equal measure — sets vision and executes hands-on. - Data-driven — every initiative measured and guided by numbers. - Self-sufficient builder — builds your own dashboards, automations, and regional playbooks without relying on engineering resources. - Genuine comfort with after-hours, high-stakes operational demands. - **Hands-on AI builder** — personally built and shipped automations, not just sponsored them. - Strong SQL skills — you write and run your own queries. - Track record of scaling a customer function's output without scaling headcount linearly - you solve for leverage, not just more people *Ideal* - Experience managing regional managers or a multi-region structure. - Background at a startup with genuine operational intensity — think Toast, or similar fast-paced restaurant/food-tech operators. - Deep familiarity with the food delivery product landscape. ### Why Sauce You'll shape not just how we support clients, but what we build for them and how we sell to them — a rare cross-functional mandate with direct CEO access. If you want to own the entire client experience, build your own tools, and thrive in a high-urgency environment where process and speed both matter, this role will feel energizing. ### What We Offer: - Strong & Competitive Compensation Package, Including Equity - Company-Sponsored Insurance Package (Health, Dental, Vision, Mental Health) - Paid Parental Leave - Flexible Work Environment - Responsible Paid Time Off Policy