EP014 Killing the CSM Role: TAMs, Forward-Deployed Engineers, and more

Is the CSM role actually dead? Jay and Jeff unpack Chad Hornfeld's viral Avoca post on replacing CSMs with Technical Account Managers and forward-deployed engineers — and what it means for how Jeff is hiring at Junction right now. Plus: Jay's weekend-built HubSpot dashboard, why Claude is winning B2B, and rebuilding onboarding around the patient journey.KEY TAKEAWAYSThe CSM role is splitting in two: The emerging model pairs a Technical Account Manager with a forward-deployed engineer. Commercial motion moves elsewhere — deep technical fluency and account growth are hard to do well in one seat.Hire for technical aptitude, not claims: Jeff is screening CSM candidates on what they've actually built with AI and whether they've read Junction's public API docs before the interview. Reciting the tagline is the wrong answer.Onboarding should follow the customer's journey, not the product: Junction is flipping onboarding around the patient journey — mapping when customers should hit specific endpoints to prevent misconfigurations that quietly generate support tickets downstream.Internal apps are replacing dashboards: Jay built a live, two-way HubSpot pipeline dashboard in a weekend with Claude Code — no incremental HubSpot spend, no BI tool. The open question: how do you deploy these safely across a team?Security is still engineering: Roughly 45% of code written by Claude ships with significant security vulnerabilities. A central "AI center of excellence" isn't optional — it's how you put guardrails on what everyone is suddenly building.Claude is winning B2B: Clear naming (Chat, Cowork, Code) maps to different user types, and early investment in Claude Code made it the default for technical work. OpenAI is optimized for B2C scale and running on investment, not flywheel.Jevons Paradox vs. doomerism: Telephone operators vanished — but long-distance unlocked a much bigger economy. Expect AI to open product and engineering roles in non-technical industries that never justified them before.CHAPTERS00:00 - Kickoff and a Friday AI hackathon03:10 - Building a HubSpot dashboard in Claude Code09:19 - BI tools, security, and Centers of Excellence12:55 - Why Claude is eating the B2B market20:41 - Killing the CSM: Chad Hornfeld, TAMs, and FDEs23:18 - Hiring technically-minded CSMs at Junction26:00 - Solutions engineer vs forward-deployed engineer27:35 - Rebuilding onboarding around a patient journey35:04 - Monthly hackathons and AI show-and-tellsAbout the Show: Chief Customer Officer Podcast is a show about real strategies for customer-led growth in the AI era—from leaders actually executing, not just talking about it.Your Hosts:Jay Nathan – CEO of Balboa Solutions and Co-Founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.ioJeff Breunsbach – Head of Customer Success at Junction and Co-Founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.io