Phoenix is the Autonomous Commerce Platform for DTC Founders. We unify storefronts, checkout, payments, and operations into one platform where AI agents handle the operational grind and merchants focus on growth.
We set out to build the "Shopify of Direct Response" and along the way recognized something bigger. Direct response is roughly a third of all ecommerce transactions, a trillion-dollar market chronically overlooked by Silicon Valley. The merchants who run it are obsessive about tooling.
They live and die by velocity, conversion, and margin. They have no brand moats. They only compete on operations, which is exactly what makes them ripe for agentic disruption and the earliest, fastest adopters of AI agents in commerce.
That insight reframed Phoenix from "the Shopify of DR" to the AI Agent Platform for DTC Founders.
This is a category-defining bet, and we are running at it from a position of strength.
Where We Are Today
8-figure ARR growing 100%+ YoY
Strong unit economics and efficient growth
Rapid merchant adoption and expanding market presence
Backed by experienced operators and investors with a history of building and scaling successful businesses
Why Now
Product-market fit is established. Demand continues to grow, merchant adoption is accelerating, and Phoenix is outperforming expectations.
There is an opportunity to define a category. While many companies are building AI tools for commerce, few are focused on helping sophisticated DTC operators automate revenue-generating decisions at scale.
Our customers are AI-ready. They adopt technology quickly when it drives measurable business outcomes, creating an ideal environment for agentic products.
This is a rare opportunity for a technical leader to step into a company with proven revenue, product-market fit, an established team, and a large market opportunity.
Three things make this an inflection point:
The Role
The Senior Director of Client Operations will lead and scale Phoenix’s client-facing support organization, overseeing customer experience, operational excellence, and retention strategy.
This role is responsible for building a high-performing Client Services organization that combines customer support, technical troubleshooting, onboarding, and proactive account management. The Senior Director will lead the team while partnering closely with Product, Engineering, CRM, Payments, and Checkout teams to ensure merchants receive exceptional service and measurable business outcomes.
This is both an operational leadership role and a strategic business role. The right leader will help merchants maximize retention, checkout performance, platform adoption, and long-term value while building the internal systems, processes, metrics, and accountability needed to scale.
Note: Clients are often referred to as Merchants.
What You'll Own
- Client Services Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and develop the Client Services organization.
- Establish service standards, response expectations, escalation frameworks, and customer success processes.
- Create a high-accountability, merchant-first culture focused on responsiveness, retention, and merchant growth.
- Monitor team performance, utilization, SLAs, satisfaction metrics, and operational efficiency.
- Build scalable workflows for onboarding, support, account management, and proactive client engagement. Onboarding & Implementation
- Own scalable onboarding and implementation frameworks for new merchants.
- Establish launch readiness standards, activation KPIs, and time-to-value goals.
- Coordinate across Integrations, Checkout, CRM, and Payments to ensure successful merchant launches.
- Identify friction points in onboarding and build processes that improve speed, consistency, and merchant experience. Technical Escalations & Support Operations
- Lead resolution of critical merchant escalations and platform incidents.
- Own severity management, root-cause analysis, escalation governance, and cross-functional communication during outages or service disruptions.
- Oversee resolution of complex client issues related to Shopify integrations, checkout functionality, subscription billing, payment processing, funnel logic, tracking discrepancies, and third-party application conflicts.
- Improve documentation standards, escalation processes, and communication between technical and client-facing teams.
- Ensure the Client Services organization develops a strong operational understanding of ecommerce systems and platform architecture. Metrics, Reporting & Operational Strategy
- Own operational visibility across client health and support operations.
- Develop customer health scoring and reporting frameworks.
- Track and analyze MRR, churn, retention, NRR, NPS/CSAT, response times, resolution times, and merchant engagement.
- Build dashboards that provide visibility into client health, operational bottlenecks, and revenue opportunities.
- Identify opportunities for automation, AI-assisted support, self-service tooling, and process improvement. Cross-Functional Leadership
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, CRM, Payments, Checkout, and Growth teams.
- Serve as the primary operational liaison between merchants and internal teams.
- Translate merchant feedback, operational pain points, and revenue-impacting issues into actionable product priorities.
- Partner with Product and Engineering on release planning, beta programs, feature adoption, rollout communication, and change management.
- Help shape customer education, onboarding materials, support documentation, and best-practice resources.
What We're Looking For
- Required
- 7+ years of experience in Customer Success, Client Services, Account Management, or Support leadership.
- 3+ years managing high-performing customer-facing teams.
- Strong experience within ecommerce, SaaS, subscription commerce, payments, or Shopify ecosystems.
- Deep understanding of ecommerce operations, checkout systems, subscription billing, payment flows, and merchant success metrics.
- Experience managing technical escalations and cross-functional operational workflows.
- Strong analytical and operational mindset with experience using data to drive decisions.
- Exceptional communication, leadership, and organizational skills.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced startup environment. Preferred
- Experience building or scaling a Customer Success, Client Services, or Support organization.
- Experience with DTC ecommerce, direct response, subscriptions, checkout optimization, or payments.
- Experience developing customer health scoring, SLA frameworks, onboarding processes, and operational dashboards.
- Familiarity with automation, AI-assisted support, self-service tooling, or customer education systems.
Leadership Traits We Value
High ownership
Decisiveness
Strong recruiting and talent development capabilities
Accountability
Product judgment
Calm under pressure
Builder mentality
Culture
All In to Win — Operate with urgency, intensity, and a relentless bar for excellence.
A Players Only — Only hire, develop, and keep A players. Protect talent density.
Merchant First — Merchants are why we exist. Every decision measured by merchant impact.
Entrepreneurial Spirit — Move like a Day One company. Fast, scrappy, hungry. Everyone owns.
Execution Over Ego — Best ideas win regardless of source. Status and titles do not matter.
These are the values that guide how we operate:
Similar Jobs
.jpg){kind=logo}
What you need to know about the Los Angeles Tech Scene
Key Facts About Los Angeles Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 375,800; 5.5% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Snap, Netflix, SpaceX, Disney, Google
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, adtech, media, software, game development
- Funding Landscape: $11.6 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Strong Ventures, Fifth Wall, Upfront Ventures, Mucker Capital, Kittyhawk Ventures
- Research Centers and Universities: California Institute of Technology, UCLA, University of Southern California, UC Irvine, Pepperdine, California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, Center for Quantum Science and Engineering
