Senior Director, Customer Innovation

About the role

The Sales Engineering Specialist, Forward Engineering, Labs, and COE organizations collectively serve as the technical vanguard for Rapid7's global go-to-market engine. This unified group accelerates complex sales cycles, builds the integration infrastructure that binds our ecosystem together, manages high-impact demo environments, and institutionalizes global engineering best practices. As a Senior Director, Customer Innovation, your primary responsibility will be to drive long-term global technical sales strategy, cross-functional business execution, and leadership scaling across our specialist and operational sales engineering organizations.

Responsibilities

• Formulate and deliver an end-to-end macro strategy encompassing Sales Engineering Labs, COE, and Forward Engineering teams with clear, outcome-oriented milestones.
• Develop a comprehensive 12-month organizational roadmap transitioning the team from tactical support to a unified, strategic ecosystem aligned with global business goals.
• Transition the sales engineering integration unit from basic connector builders to an enterprise-grade platform Forward Engineering team capable of advancing architectural vision.
• Cultivate a robust internal talent pipeline by transitioning from day-to-day management to organizational depth, mentoring successors, and formalizing execution plans for frontline leaders.
• Build and maintain formal succession and development frameworks within the COE to raise engineering standards and leadership capabilities.
• Partner with Worldwide Sales Leadership to explicitly define, audit, and document field requirements for specialist sales engineering resources versus territory sales engineers.
• Present data-driven business cases highlighting the strategic necessity, ROI, and resource scaling of each specialist function ahead of annual planning cycles.
• Maintain a highly visible executive presence in high-stakes corporate settings, driving cross-functional alignment and navigating organizational change.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience leading technical sales or systems engineering teams within cybersecurity, with at least 4+ years managing multi-tiered organizations (managing managers).

Skills

• Demonstrated technical operations mastery, with proven experience overseeing complex technical infrastructure groups such as Cloud/On-Prem Demo Labs, Centers of Excellence, or Technical Enablement functions.
• High conceptual familiarity with Forward Engineering and systems architecture, including API ecosystems, security orchestration (SOAR), technology integrations, and enterprise security platforms.
• Strong financial and operational acumen, with experience structuring headcount models, proving ROI on technical overhead, and mapping engineering performance to revenue attainment metrics.
• High-stakes mediation skills and self-awareness to manage conflict, adapt to challenging group dynamics, and maintain an active, commanding leadership voice under pressure.
• Ability to think big and act small — breaking massive organizational goals into time-bound milestones, executing rapidly, and pivoting effectively based on business metrics.
• Ability to establish clear ownership, roles, and responsibilities within highly complex technical matrices, relentlessly delivering value over mere activity.
• Exceptional resilience and communication during periods of organizational evolution, actively driving alignment and understanding the rationale for change.
• Ability to build global internal networks and integrate diverse technical perspectives to make efficient, transparent decisions that maintain organizational momentum.
• A commitment to embodying our core values, fostering a culture of excellence that drives meaningful impact and collective success.

Pay

The annual salary range for this role, depending on location, is: United States: $210,600.00 - 285,000.00 USD. Annual salary ranges may vary based on geographical location. This range does not include variable/incentive compensation, equity and benefits (where applicable/eligible).