Principal, Strategy & Planning

Job Description

Who were looking for:

The Zendesk Strategy & Planning team is seeking an experienced Principal to accelerate Zendesks transformational strategy and execution plans by influencing company direction and action with data-based decision making. This is a high-impact role at the intersection of data execution and growth strategy. This role will play a key part in accelerating the pace of execution towards strategic objectives and raising the quality and confidence of decision making amidst uncertainty by analyzing internal data and forming insights & recommendations to influence action across the company. The ideal candidate can balance attention to detail with strategic thinking and knows how to use data and structure to move the business forward. If youre passionate about leveraging data to influence company growth and category transformation in the age of AI and at the speed and agility of AI wed love to hear from you!

About you

• You are intellectually curious and like to search for context and insight behind the numbers

• You have excellent analytical and critical thinking skills

• You are a strategic thinker who can see the big picture and granular details as needed

• You are a team player

• You have an aptitude for framing business questions with data

• You have a great work ethic with a strong desire to exceed expectations

• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and are able to communicate well across different audiences

• You are a motivated self-starter who thrives working in a fast-paced dynamic environment

• You are detail oriented resourceful and scrappy

What youll be doing:

• Partner closely with internal stakeholders to understand business strategies operational objectives and develop metrics analyses and scorecards to evaluate strategy health.

• Generate strategic insights. Translate business priorities (like AI capability penetration GRR CSAT/NPS etc) into focused analytics agendas and testable hypotheses.

• Hands-on analytics and data development. Write strong & efficient SQL in Zendesks data platform to extract transform and model data across multiple functional domains and enterprise value streams.

• Champion actionable points of view by forming and testing hypotheses with the use of the data on Zendesks strategy health.

• Data storytelling and executive communication. Translating complex analyses into crisp decision-oriented executive communication with messages tailored to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Develop SQL queries to analyze trends including but not limited to metrics across the full buyer journey from pre-sales through post-sales to identify trends and underlying drivers.

• Work with cross-functional teams to surface actionable insights that reinforce strong strategy execution and enable fast pivots when market dynamics warrant a change in direction.

• Collaborate with the Enterprise Data and Analytics team on technical requirements and analysis and progress governed metric definitions ensuring clear documentation & metric lineage that enables strategy execution monitoring across Zendesk.

What you bring to the role

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree in business economics engineering or related financial or scientific discipline or equivalent experience

• 8 years in business strategy operations or consulting with a focus on SaaS AI and GTM

• Strong analytical modeling and data storytelling skills

• Fluency with Excel/Sheets BI tools (e.g. Looker Sigma) CRM systems (e.g. Salesforce Gainsight) and use of SQL Python and data warehousing ops (ELT)

• Demonstrated expertise in advanced analytics and statistical modeling including predictive modeling segmentation and data mining techniques.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

• Thrive in ambiguous situations possesses a proactive problem-solving attitude.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with strategy & planning or program management teams.

• Experience in the domains of AI ML or customer experience (CX)

• Expertise in developing measurement and benchmarking frameworks that directly drive business insights.

• Experience with data visualization / BI tools (e.g. Looker QuickSight etc.)

• Familiarity with big data technologies and cloud-based data platforms (e.g. Snowflake DBT AirFlow).

• Prior exposure to CRM or customer support data environments is a strong plus.

Our Data and Tech Stack:

• ELT & Data Orchestration: Snowflake dbt Airflow Kafka

• Machine Learning & Analytics: Python/R PyTorch TensorFlow AWS Batch and EMR for ML pipelines

• Visualization: Looker Tableau

Where We Work

Zendesk is not your average tech company. We have all the stuff youd expect - competitive pay benefits appealing offices snacks and more. We also have a culture deeply dedicated to enabling conversations and providing appreciative support. We help our staff keep work-life balance from flexible hours to remote work to the most dynamic parental leave plans on the market. Our Social Impact team is actively engaged in our community and enables us to invest thousands of hours with local community groups each year. We invest in diversity and inclusion so that our team reflects the diversity of the world around us. We have a whole crew dedicated to ensuring our workplace experience is top notch and welcoming for all.

• Please note that anyone hired into this position must be physically located in and plan to work from Mexico City (CDMX) or Mexico State (Estado de Mexico).

• Hybrid: In this role our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection collaboration learning and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

Hybrid: In this role our hybrid experience is designed at the team level to give you a rich onsite experience packed with connection collaboration learning and celebration - while also giving you flexibility to work remotely for part of the week. This role must attend our local office for part of the week. The specific in-office schedule is to be determined by the hiring manager.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working enables us to purposefully come together in person at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world to connect collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer and were proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity equity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race color religion national origin age sex gender gender identity gender expression sexual orientation marital status medical condition ancestry disability military or veteran status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application complete any pre-employment testing or otherwise participate in the employee selection process please send an e-mail to with your specific accommodation request.