Implementation Manager
Proton.ai · Cambridge · $100,000–$120,000 (stated in the posting)
Implementation Manager
About Us
Proton is building the AI operating system for wholesale distribution, embedded in the workflows that move nearly every physical product on the planet. Distribution is a $9 trillion industry running on software that has been stuck for decades. We unify CRM, PIM, eCommerce AI, and Order & Quote Entry AI into one platform with one data layer and one AI brain, so reps spend their time on customer relationships instead of data entry.
We have been building AI into distribution long before it became an industry buzzword. That head start matters, and we've only deepened the investment by shipping the first AI assistant embedded in a distribution CRM and launching a complete agentic product in our PIM offering.
We hire people with high agency and high urgency. Everyone here is a builder who owns problems end to end and ships AI-native software faster than anyone else in the category. The median Proton customer reports 3x profit return per dollar spent and an extra day of sales per rep per month. Hundreds of distributors run on Proton, from family-owned shops to publicly-traded enterprises. We're backed by Felicis Ventures and Battery Ventures.
The Role
We're hiring an Implementation Manager to own standard customer engagements from pre-sales solutioning through a successful go-live. As part of Forward Deployed Engineering, you'll be the customer-facing owner of the plan, the work, and the outcome—translating real distributor workflows into an implementation that delivers value quickly and sticks.
Implementation here means more than a handoff after a deal closes. You'll help Sales shape a workable solution before signature, define scope and success criteria, lead the project through configuration, integrations, data, testing, training, and go-live, then leave the customer set up to run on Proton. You'll act as the engagement lead for standard implementations: equally comfortable driving details, aligning senior stakeholders, and surfacing what needs to change. You'll partner with Engineering and Engagement Managers when scope, technical risk, or stakeholder complexity exceeds the standard path. This role is designed as a growth path into an Engagement Manager role driving complex customer engagements.
Location: Cambridge, MA. Hybrid, 3 days a week in our Harvard Square office.
Customer travel: Occasional travel to customer sites, including distribution centers, is expected.
What You'll Do
- Partner in pre-sales solutioning. Join discovery and solution-design conversations, turn requirements into clear scopes and phased plans, surface dependencies and risks early, and make sure what is sold can be implemented well.
- Lead the delivery plan. Take each project from signed agreement through go-live: kickoff, project plan, configuration, integrations, data readiness, testing, training, and cutover. Keep every workstream moving and every owner clear.
- Run stakeholder governance and risk. Establish the right cadence with customer champions, technical teams, and executives. Keep decisions and risks visible, escalate early when a plan needs to change, and resolve issues before they become surprises.
- Translate business workflows into a technical plan. Get close to how a distributor sells, quotes, manages products, and enters orders; then work with customers and Proton teammates to configure the right workflow, data model, and integration approach.
- Drive integration and data work with good judgment. You do not need to be the engineer writing every integration, but you can assess API, source-system, data-quality, and integration risks well enough to make tradeoffs visible and bring in the right technical owner.
- Make go-live real. Define acceptance criteria, lead UAT and readiness reviews, prepare users for change, coordinate cutover, and stay close enough after launch to ensure the new workflow is actually adopted.
- Own implementation outcomes. Track time to value, on-time go-lives, activation, implementation CSAT, and project health. Forecast risk honestly and act early when a plan needs to change.
- Build the repeatable motion. Turn lessons from customers into sharper playbooks, templates, estimates, product feedback, and sales enablement. Help make each normal implementation faster, clearer, and better than the last.
What You'll Need to Succeed
- Implementation and project-management experience. 2+ years in implementation, technical project delivery, professional services, or a comparable role, with demonstrated ownership of customer outcomes. Early-stage B2B SaaS experience is a plus.
- Technical fluency. You can work productively with APIs, integrations, data models, source systems, and configuration. You ask precise questions, identify risk, and can hold your own with customer technical teams and senior engineers.
- Pre-sales judgment. You can turn ambiguous customer needs into an implementable plan, distinguish a requirement from a nice-to-have, surface constraints without creating friction, and protect the path to value.
- Excellent execution under real-world constraints. You know how to build and run a project plan, coordinate dependencies, make decisions visible, and move multiple workstreams forward without losing the detail.
- Customer-facing range. You're as comfortable in a warehouse aisle with an operations team as you are running a meeting with senior stakeholders. You'd rather understand the work firsthand than manage by secondhand notes.
- Clear communication and calm ownership. You can explain technical tradeoffs in plain language, earn trust quickly, and keep customers and internal teams aligned when things are messy.
- Practical use of AI in your own work. You regularly use AI tools to accelerate planning, analysis, documentation, and coordination, and know how to provide context, evaluate outputs, and correct mistakes.
- Data-driven and adaptive thinking. You use project and customer data to decide what needs attention, while staying flexible as details change.
- High agency and a continuous improvement mindset. You look for the root cause, close the loop, and improve the system rather than just getting through the current project.
Big Plus
- Complex B2B, enterprise, or ERP-adjacent software, with high-frequency users and operational workflows people can't opt out of.
- Wholesale distribution, manufacturing, logistics, or another operationally complex industry.
- CRM, PIM, eCommerce, order management, or systems-of-record integrations.
- Experience delivering AI-enabled workflows in a customer environment, including the trust, correction, and handoff patterns that make them useful.
Compensation and Benefits
The target base-salary range for this role is $100,000–$120,000, plus meaningful equity. Final offers will be based on your skills and previous experience.
- Company-sponsored 401(k) program
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Unlimited PTO (and we mean it, we want you to take time off) + 10 company-paid holidays
- 12 weeks fully paid parental leave, primary and secondary caregivers, including adoption and fostering
- Professional development (get that book, take that course, attend that conference)
- Access to the AI tools that make you faster, and encouragement to find new ones
- Annual company-paid offsites
- A friendly, inclusive, human-first team that blends hustle, productivity, and fun
Proton.ai is an equal opportunity employer. Proton.ai participates in the E-Verify program: Notice of E-Verify Participation, Right to Work.