Senior Lifecycle Marketing Manager

About Docker

Docker has been one of the most loved brands in developer tooling, trusted by more than 20 million monthly users and over 20 billion container image pulls. From solo founders to the world's largest companies, developers rely on Docker to build, share, and run their applications across our suite of products including Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, and Docker Scout. We are a globally distributed, remote-first team building the tools that define how software gets built and delivered. As AI agents redefine software development, Docker is at the center of that shift, providing the sandboxed environments, verified images, and secure infrastructure that make autonomous workflows trustworthy by default.

Docker's Product-Led Growth (PLG) team owns turning product usage into revenue across the full Platform: the Container business (Docker Desktop, Docker Hub, Docker Build Cloud, Docker Scout) and the AI business (Sandboxes, AI Governance, Model Runner, MCP Toolkit, MCP Catalog). Lifecycle marketing is one of the fastest-scaling parts of that team: it already owns user and admin nurtures, renewal automation, and first-touch outreach for PQLs and inbound leads, running against a marketable base in the tens of millions.

As Senior Lifecycle Marketer , you'll report directly to the VP of PLG and partner closely with our existing lifecycle marketing lead. You'll take ownership of assigned products, audiences, and lifecycle stages, with real input into shaping the approach for what you own, not just shipping someone else's plan, and you'll help turn a fast-growing list of priorities into a structured, scalable lifecycle engine.

What Makes Someone Successful in This Role

• Lifecycle Fluency: You think in full user journeys, not campaigns. You've done lifecycle marketing specifically, not just growth or demand gen, and you know how nurture, activation, retention, and renewal connect across a product's full lifecycle.
• Builder's Mindset: You'd rather own a program end to end, strategy, build, QA, and send, than hand pieces of it off. You bring structure to ambiguity: turning a fast-growing list of priorities into themes, a build queue, and a sequenced roadmap.
• Audience & Signal Validation: You know how to validate an audience and its underlying signal before it ships: spot-checking record-level data, sanity-checking targeting logic, and catching a bad segment before it reaches users. You don't need to write SQL yourself, but you can work directly with data teams to confirm a list is right.
• Cross-Functional Operator: You operate well across marketing, sales (BDR and renewals), data, and design/agency partners, and you know how to keep programs moving even when you don't own every dependency.
• Marketing Automation Execution: You've personally built campaigns in Marketo or an equivalent platform, not just briefed them: audience builds, suppressions and contact governance, pre-send QA and live proofs, and launch monitoring, including troubleshooting a broken data sync in the moment.
• Technical Translation: You can take a technical product or a raw usage signal, a feature adoption event, a usage threshold, a new capability, and turn it into messaging that reads credible to a developer or admin, not generic marketing copy.

Responsibilities

• Build the Lifecycle Engine: Own and build lifecycle campaigns (email and in-product messaging) across Docker's Container and AI Platform products, including Sandboxes and AI Governance, for both end users and admins.
• Scale Programmatic Sends: Design and run large-scale programmatic sends, such as recurring account health checks, to a base in the tens of millions, working within the team's marketing automation stack (currently Marketo and Mailgun; expect a platform transition in the next 6–12 months).
• Automate Lead and Renewal Motions: Stand up and run automated first-touch flows for PQLs and inbound leads, in partnership with BDR and renewals stakeholders.
• Validate Audiences & Signals: Partner with data and growth engineering to pull the usage signals campaigns depend on (Snowflake and internal data tools), and validate that an audience and its underlying signal are correct before every send.
• Manage Suppressions & Contact Governance: Own suppression lists and contact governance rules so campaigns stay compliant and don't over-message or reach the wrong audience.
• QA, Launch Monitoring & Troubleshooting: Run pre-send QA and live proofs on every campaign, monitor launches as they go out, and troubleshoot issues in real time, including broken data syncs.
• Translate Signals into Messaging: Turn technical product usage and adoption signals into messaging that reads credible and useful to developers and admins, not generic marketing copy.
• Shape and Sequence Strategy: Take a fast-growing list of priorities and turn it into a concrete build queue: itemize the work, sequence it, and flag capacity or dependency issues early.
• Coordinate Design & Agency Partners: Work with design and agency partners to keep campaign quality and turnaround on track.
• Operationalize Reporting: Own naming, tracking, and reporting on programs so the rest of the team has visibility into what's live, what's next, and what it's driving.

Qualifications

• Lifecycle Marketing Experience: A background specifically in lifecycle marketing, not pure growth or demand gen, ideally inside a PLG or self-serve motion.
• Proven Program Ownership: A track record of owning campaigns end to end (strategy, build, QA, send) and shipping programs that moved a real metric: activation, retention, or renewal conversion.
• Marketing Automation Build Experience: Hands-on build experience in Marketo or an equivalent marketing automation platform: audience builds, program/campaign setup, suppressions and contact governance, pre-send QA and live proofs, and launch monitoring.
• Data & Targeting Validation: Comfortable working directly with data teams to validate record-level data and targeting logic, for example auditing who's actually in a segment or spot-checking a list against expectations. Writing SQL yourself is a plus, not a requirement.
• Technical-to-Message Translation: A track record of turning a technical product or a raw usage signal into messaging that reads credible to a developer or admin audience, not generic marketing copy.
• Technical Familiarity: Comfort navigating developer ecosystems, cloud infrastructure, or complex multi-product software platforms.
• Independent Ownership: Senior-level judgment and ownership as an individual contributor: you can run with ambiguity and drive a program without every step spelled out, and you collaborate well with another senior peer on the team.

What to Expect

First 30 Days

• Immerse & Align: Get up to speed on Docker's PLG motion, product surface area (Container and AI), and the programs lifecycle already owns. Build a working relationship with data, BDR, renewals, and design/agency partners.
• Program & Tooling Audit: Audit the current state of user and admin nurtures, renewal automation, and PQL/lead outreach, and get familiar with the Marketo/Mailgun stack and its upcoming transition.
• Roadmap Calibration: Work with the lifecycle team to turn the current priority list into themes, a build queue, and a sequenced roadmap.

First 90 Days

• Ship Owned Campaigns: Take ownership of at least one full program, such as an admin nurture flow or a PQL first-touch sequence, from build through send.
• Contribute to Renewal Automation: Stand up a first version of automated renewal outreach in partnership with the renewals team.
• Build the Reporting Cadence: Put in place naming, tracking, and reporting so the team has clear visibility into what's live and what it's driving.

One Year Outlook

• Own a Mature Program Set: Own a mature, scaled set of lifecycle programs across your assigned products, audiences, and lifecycle stages.
• Prove Impact: Show measurable lift in activation, retention, or renewal conversion tied directly to your programs.
• Scale the Function: Help lifecycle marketing operate as a