API Field Specialist, Slack

About the Role

As API and platform consumption become a growing revenue stream for Slack, sales cycles involving higher API rate limits and usage-based pricing are increasingly complex. Account Executives don't have the technical depth to scope these deals or answer usage questions, and platform engineers are being pulled into sales cycles as an ad hoc stopgap — an unsustainable drain on core product work.

We're hiring a Field Specialist, API Monetization to close this gap: a customer-facing technical expert who becomes the key pillar of this new revenue stream.

This person will partner with AEs throughout the sales cycle as the primary technical point of contact for customers on all things API-related — using deep product knowledge and a usage forecasting model to size deals, explain pricing, and build trust with technical buyers.

What You'll Do

• Partner with AEs on deals involving API usage, rate limits, or platform consumption
• Serve as the technical expert in customer conversations — confidently explaining API mechanics, usage patterns, and what a given spend level unlocks for the customer
• Use the usage forecasting calculator to size deals (credits or flat-rate) and walk both sellers and customers through the "why" behind a number
• Help identify which accounts to prioritize for API-related deals based on current usage patterns
• Meet directly with customers' technical teams to scope requirements and validate usage assumptions
• Keep the usage calculator accurate as the rate card and packaging evolve
• Feed field learnings back to product and pricing — surfacing patterns and recommending evolutions to the rate card or calculator
• Build reusable frameworks and playbooks so AEs can eventually self-serve on simpler deals
• Advise on and help ensure final deal terms related to APIs are structured correctly, in partnership with the AE and Deal Desk

Note: This role does not own closing the deal or carry a quota — commercial structuring, contract terms, and the customer relationship stay with the AE. This role owns the customer-facing technical and quantitative conversation.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years in a technical, customer-facing, or pricing/consumption-modeling role
• Deep fluency in APIs, rate limiting, and usage-based pricing models
• Comfortable owning and defending a quantitative model in front of a skeptical customer or seller — not just building one
• Track record partnering with sales teams on complex technical or commercial deals
• Strong communication skills; equally credible with technical and business stakeholders
• Experience translating field and customer feedback into product or pricing input

Strongest Fit Profile

A senior Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, or Technical Account Manager from a company with real usage-based or metered pricing, who has personally had to explain a bill or cost estimate to a skeptical enterprise customer — not just demo a product. That "defending a number under questioning" experience is the closest proxy for this job. Deep API fluency is a must.

Where to source:

• Usage/consumption-pricing companies: Twilio, Stripe, Snowflake, Datadog, MongoDB Atlas, Confluent, Fastly — places where explaining a rate card to a customer is a named, practiced skill
• Token-based API companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, and other LLM API providers — likely the single best-fit talent pool; token economics conversations map almost directly onto this role
• AWS/GCP enterprise TAMs specializing in cost optimization (Cost Explorer-style work) — different product, same core skill

Weaker fits to watch for:

• Pure Deal Desk/pricing analysts who've built calculators but never defended one live with a customer or AE — quantitative skill without field credibility or API depth
• Generalist SEs from subscription (non-usage) pricing companies — demo skills transfer, but no experience reasoning about variable consumption

Level & Headcount

Senior Individual Contributor (targeting Sr. Manager level). No deal or quota authority required — the bar is technical/quantitative depth plus field credibility, not commercial decision rights.

One head to start, with room to build out a small team as demand grows.

Reporting

This role reports directly to Zach Ciliotta-Young, with a close working partnership across the sales team and Product Strategy & Operations to stay aligned on pricing and product strategy as they evolve.