Senior Community Management Professional
Nearly a decade of building communities that drive real business outcomes. Turning customers into advocates, feedback into roadmaps, and platforms into thriving ecosystems.
Who I Am
“Community isn’t a feature you ship. It’s a culture you earn.”
I’m Austin Grimes - a senior community management professional with close to a decade of experience building, scaling, and operationalizing online communities for enterprise software companies. I specialize in turning user bases into engaged ecosystems that drive measurable business outcomes: reduced support costs, stronger retention, and customers who become your best advocates.
My career spans community strategy, program management, and platform operations across three major enterprise brands. At SailPoint, I currently manage both the Compass Community and the Developer Community. Before that, I led digital community operations at Flexera for nearly four years - including the largest project of my career: merging the Flexera and Snow Software communities into a single unified platform. At Intuit, I was part of the founding team for the ProConnect Khoros Community and launched the Intuit Champions super-user program from scratch.
I bring a program manager’s mindset to community work - every initiative I run has clear goals, defined stakeholders, measurable KPIs, and a path to scale. If you need someone who can think strategically and execute operationally, I’d love to connect.
Where I’ve Been
Full-Time · Remote
Full-Time · Remote
Full-Time · Plano, TX
What I Bring
Notable Highlights
Led the merger of the Flexera and Snow Software communities into one unified Flexera Community - a complete rebuild from the ground up. Two structurally different platforms, different badge systems, different content architectures. Not a lift-and-shift: a full reimagination designed to create the world’s largest ITAM community.
Built distinct Champions and Super-User programs at both Flexera and Intuit, creating structured advocacy ecosystems that amplified the voice of the customer and deepened brand loyalty.
At SailPoint, simultaneously managing both the Compass Community (customer-facing) and the Developer Community - two distinct audiences, one cohesive strategy.
Honored with the Bottom Line Savings Rock Star award by Khoros for generating substantial cost savings through community-driven support solutions at Flexera.
Built and launched Intuit’s Idea Exchange, connecting customer feedback directly to product roadmap decisions through a defined, cross-functional lifecycle process integrated with Khoros.
Redesigned Flexera’s community ranking and gamification structure from the ground up, driving measurable increases in user engagement and long-term retention.
What Others Say
Austin led several key initiatives and migration programs with impressive precision and care, always bringing clarity, structure, and a deep understanding of what our community needed most. What truly set Austin apart was his ability to lead with empathy and authenticity. Any team would be lucky to have him.
Austin is my best hire ever. He is strategic; he quickly identified the issues, prioritized them, created plans, then executed and delivered. He also brought vision to our strategy, planning roadmaps to leverage the features of the community platform to improve the customer experience over time. I highly recommend Austin as an effective and influential leader in the community space.
One of Austin’s standout qualities is his ability to define and build effective strategies and then lead their execution at an operational level. Managing a project of this scale required skillful coordination of a wide array of stakeholders, including both internal teams and external subcontractors. Austin handled this responsibility with expertise and poise, ensuring every detail came together seamlessly.
He isn’t just a community manager. He’s a connector, a listener, and a tireless advocate for both users and teammates. Whether navigating complex platform migrations, managing through acquisitions, or supporting a growing community, Austin handled it all with grace, humor, and a smile. Any organization would be lucky to have him leading its community efforts.
Let’s Connect
Whether you want to talk community strategy, explore a collaboration, or just connect with someone who’s as passionate about building belonging as you are - my inbox is open.