Retention rarely collapses in one dramatic moment. It slips quietly, in the weeks nobody was close enough to the account to catch it sliding from green to yellow before it turned red. This role exists so that it never happens on someone's watch again.

You'd own the retention relationship end to end: watching health signals, running the safe conversation the moment risk shows up, and catching expansion opportunities before anyone else does. The playbook and the book of merchants are already built and proven, on an AI-native SMS marketing platform for Shopify sellers, so the work starts on day one instead of months into figuring out the function from scratch.

WHO THEY ARE

This is an AI-native SMS marketing platform built exclusively for Shopify merchants: abandoned cart recovery, repeat-purchase campaigns, and a conversational AI Agent that talks to shoppers like an actual person, not a bot script. They're bootstrapped, profitable, sitting around $4 to 5M ARR with 1,200+ paying merchants, and built by a team small enough to fit on one Zoom call without anyone needing a second screen.

Here's what actually shapes how people work day to day:

• Async by default. Docs and Looms beat meetings that could've been a Slack message.
• No middle management. Everyone here executes, including the people leading functions.
• Hired for who they are before what they can do. Values get screened before skills, every time.
• Small team, real stakes. What you own actually moves the number; there's no committee sitting between your call and the outcome.

This is a fully remote, full-time contractor role.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU

• Real ownership: you inherit and run an entire book of paying merchants, not a slice of one.
• No layers in the way: you report straight into the Head of Customer Experience, with nothing slowing the decision down.
• Built-in leverage: an existing playbook and automation already doing the tracking, so your time goes to the accounts that actually need a person.
• Growth tied to results: a strong first 90 days opens the door to expanded scope and comp growth.
• Fully remote: work from wherever your best thinking happens, on a schedule built around output.
• Visibility without the noise: on a lean team, your work shows up immediately. 

WHAT YOU'RE GETTING INTO

• Own the ongoing health of every merchant in your book, tracked green, yellow, or red, with zero excuse for finding out an account went red from someone else.
• Run the save motion on every at-risk account yourself: the hard conversation, the recovery plan, the follow-through.
• Catch expansion signals before the merchant says them out loud, and route them to whoever should act on them.
• Get on camera with merchants who want a real person looking out for their account, not a ticket number.
• Shadow, then take over, health-review and save-motion conversations, until you're running them solo with no net underneath you.
• Feed your read on what's broken in the playbook back to your manager in writing, on a cadence, not just when something's already gone wrong.
• Hand off cleanly with the Support team on every account where a ticket and a relationship conversation overlap, so the merchant never feels the seam.
• Keep a running, honest picture of your book's save rate and health trend that nobody has to chase you for.

WHO YOU ARE

• You have 2+ years of experience at a startup, ideally in ecommerce, DTC, or a Shopify app company.
• You write and speak English well enough to get on camera with a merchant and sound like you know exactly what you're talking about, because you do.
• You're comfortable being watched: video calls, screen shares, a merchant sizing you up in the first ten seconds. 
• You're fine being one of a handful of people carrying an entire function. 
• You can tell a real risk signal apart from someone just having a bad week, and you know which one needs a phone call today.
• You coordinate daily with a small support team without needing a manager to referee the handoffs.

Bonus if you've:

• Run or contributed to an account-health scoring system, a save motion, or a churn-risk workflow before
• Worked inside Shopify, SMS or email lifecycle marketing, or a similar ecommerce SaaS tool

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

• Day 30: You know every merchant in your book by name and by mood, not just by a healthy color. You've sat in on enough save-motion calls to spot the difference between "annoyed" and "already gone."
• Day 60: You're running the save motion solo, no training wheels. Your manager has your first real notes on what's broken in the playbook, not a vague "it's going well." Your first upsell tip made it to the right desk.
• Day 90: The book is fully yours. You've left a trail of what you changed and why. And you know your save rate cold, because you're the one keeping score now.