Director - Customer Validation

Director of Customer Validation

Team: Product & Engineering

About Mimecast:
At Mimecast, we are dedicated to elevating our teams and delivering the best version of ourselves to our customers and partners. Our Product & Engineering teams are at the heart of innovation, driving the development and delivery of secure, scalable, and reliable solutions for our global client base.

Role Overview:
As theDirector of Customer Validation, you will lead the strategic direction, execution, and continuous improvement of Mimecast's customer validation programs. You will be responsible for building and scaling a high-performing team, ensuring operational excellence, and collaborating cross-functionally to deliver actionable customer insights that shape our security solutions. This role requires a visionary leader with a passion for customer advocacy, product quality, and driving innovation through real-world feedback. You as a senior leader are responsible for overseeing and guiding the customer validation phase within the product development lifecycle. This role ensures that new products, features, or services are rigorously tested with real customers before full-scale launch, reducing risk and increasing the likelihood of market success.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership:Defines and sets the vision and strategy for customer validation programs, ensuring alignment with overall business and product goals.
• Program Oversight:They design and manage structured validation initiatives such as beta programs, pilot tests, and early access releases, engaging real customers to gather actionable feedback.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration:The Director works closely with Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales Engineering and Sales teams to integrate customer insights into the product development process, ensuring that products truly address customer needs
• Customer Engagement:They facilitate direct interactions with customers through interviews, surveys, and prototyping, using these insights to validate assumptions about the market, customer problems, and product fit
• Continuous Improvement:The Director analyzes feedback and validation results to recommend product improvements, inform go/no-go decisions, and refine future validation processes.
• Team Leadership:They build and lead a team of validation professionals, fostering a culture of customer-centricity and continuous learning.

Ultimately, the Director of Customer Validation plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between product development and real-world customer needs, ensuring that products are market-ready and positioned for success

Qualifications:

• 5+ years experience leading customer validation, product feedback, or similar functions in a SaaS, security, or technology environment.
• Extensive experiencein customer validation, product management, quality assurance, or related fields.
• Strong technical skills to be able to set up a product environment for testing purposes and ensure we have an ability to spin up and spin down as necessary or stand new ones.
• Strong background in customer engagement, product quality, and operational management and being able to liaison with Product Management and Engineering
• Proven track recordof designing and executing customer validation or beta programs, and integrating customer feedback into product development.
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and strategic planning skills.
• Passion for innovation, customer experience, and continuous improvement.

The base salary range for this position is $168K - $252K base + benefits. This reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for this position. This position may also be eligible for incentive plans and other related benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. These factors and individual capabilities will also determine the individual pay offered.

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Belonging at Mimecast

Cybersecurity is a community effort. That's why we're committed to building an inclusive, diverse community that celebrates and welcomes everyone - unless they're a cybercriminal, of course.

We're proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, and we'd encourage you to join us whatever your background. We particularly welcome applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups.

We consider everyone equally: your race, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, marital status, nationality, or any other protected characteristic won't affect your application.

If you require any adjustments or accommodations due to a disability, or any other reason that may help you in your interview process, please let us know by emailing careers@mimecast.com.

Due to certain obligations to our customers, an offer of employment will be subject to your successful completion of applicable background checks, conducted in accordance with local law.