Senior Marketing Automation Solution Architect

Senior Marketing Automation Solution Architect (Salesforce Marketing Cloud) Ohio, USA Full time R2026-1274 We believe in the power and joy of learning At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping learners around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education. About the role: Cengage is seeking a strategic, collaborative, and technically minded Senior Marketing Automation Solution Architect to lead the evolution of our Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) capabilities and help teams move faster, work smarter, and drive growth. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is now branded as Agentforce Marketing. Reporting to the Director of Marketing Technology and Data Operations, this role will serve as the senior solution architecture and capability leader for Salesforce Marketing Cloud within Marketing. The Senior Marketing Automation Solution Architect will own the marketing-side vision and roadmap for SFMC while helping marketers and producers build deeper platform knowledge and unlock more capabilities. This role sits at the intersection of marketing strategy, campaign operations, data, and technology. The ideal candidate combines deep Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce ecosystem expertise with broad marketing automation experience and can translate complex business needs into scalable solutions. The Senior Marketing Automation Solution Architect will help Marketing accelerate decisions and execution, raise the baseline of SFMC knowledge across Campaign Operations, and expand marketers' understanding of the art of the possible through SFMC and connected systems. This person will serve as a trusted advisor across complex marketing initiatives with SFMC dependencies. They will bring clarity to solution decisions, guide scalable approaches, and help teams move from requirements to execution faster. This is an opportunity for someone who enjoys solving complex business problems, enabling others, connecting marketing and technology, and building capabilities that drive stronger customer experiences and growth. Please note: While this role will partner closely with IT and technical teams, it is not intended to be the primary platform administrator or developer. Instead, this role will provide marketing-side solution leadership and architecture expertise. This is an individual contributor remote role with occasional travel required. What you'll do here: Own Marketing's Salesforce Marketing Cloud Strategy and Roadmap Define and own the marketing-side Salesforce Marketing Cloud capability roadmap with Marketing Operations, Data, Digital, Analytics, RevOps, IT, and Marketing leadership. Translate marketing strategies and business priorities into prioritized SFMC capabilities and solution recommendations. Find opportunities to improve targeting, segmentation, personalization, journey orchestration, and triggered communications through SFMC. Evaluate platform limitations, operational challenges, and technical debt to prioritize improvements and investments. Define SFMC's future role within the marketing ecosystem while maintaining a platform-agnostic perspective. Raise the Baseline of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Knowledge Serve as Marketing's senior subject matter expert for SFMC capabilities, architecture, and standards. Raise SFMC knowledge across campaign producers through practical guidance, reusable resources, playbooks, and standards. Enable producers and operations teams on SFMC automation, segmentation, personalization, data, and journey capabilities. Help marketers understand the art of the possible by connecting business goals to SFMC capabilities. Develop and maintain SFMC documentation, playbooks, standards, and reusable resources that enable consistent execution and strengthen organizational knowledge. Provide Solution Architecture and Execution Guidance Serve as the primary SFMC solution architecture advisor for complex marketing initiatives and operational projects. Translate business requirements into scalable SFMC solutions across campaigns, audiences, automation, and customer journeys. Resolve complex campaign challenges while identifying scalable solutions to recurring SFMC issues. Improve Marketer Productivity and Self-Service Evolve SFMC template systems and reusable campaign components that reduce friction and accelerate production. Expand self-service capabilities that enable marketers while maintaining appropriate governance and quality standards. Partner with Campaign Operations to improve workflows, tools, and capabilities that increase marketer productivity. Unlock Salesforce Marketing Cloud Capabilities to Drive Growth Identify SFMC capabilities that improve customer engagement, campaign effectiveness, marketer productivity, and business outcomes. Expand capabilities across personalization, audience management, lifecycle marketing, journey orchestration, and triggered communications. Evaluate, test, and pilot emerging SFMC and AI capabilities to identify practical opportunities for innovation and growth. Provide SFMC Solution Architecture and Governance Partner with IT, Marketing Operations, Data, Digital, Analytics, and RevOps teams on architecture, integration, and technical implementation decisions. Represent marketing requirements and operational needs in SFMC architecture and technology discussions. Ensure SFMC implementations and campaign practices adhere to enterprise security, privacy, data governance, and applicable regulatory requirements. Maintain strong vendor relations that help us plan, implement, and manage the performance of our SFMC platform and ecosystem. Advance SFMC Data, Integration, and AI Readiness Partner with Data and IT teams to support scalable SFMC data and integration capabilities. Guide SFMC integrations with CRM, web, analytics, data platforms, and other marketing technologies. Identify AI and intelligent automation opportunities that improve execution, personalization, quality, and productivity. Help establish the data, process, and governance foundations required for future SFMC capabilities. Partner Across the Business Build strong partnerships across Marketing, Marketing Centers-of-Excellence, Data, Digital, Analytics, RevOps, and IT. Connect business priorities, campaign requirements, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud capabilities. Influence platform and operational decisions through clear recommendations and strong communication. Support SFMC adoption through enablement, documentation, standards, and change management. Skills you will need here: 7+ years of experience in marketing automation, marketing technology, campaign operations, marketing operations, or related technology functions. Deep expertise with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including automation, segmentation, personalization, audience management, data, journey orchestration, and campaign execution. Experience translating complex business requirements into scalable marketing automation and Salesforce Marketing Cloud solutions. Strong understanding of SFMC architecture, integrations, data, workflows, campaign operations, and customer experience. Experience partnering with IT, engineering, data, and architecture teams on complex technology initiatives. Broad marketing automation experience with the ability to apply principles beyond Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Strong ability to enable teams, raise platform knowledge, and explain technical concepts to non-technical partners. Demonstrated ability to evaluate complex problems and balance business value, speed, scalability, and risk. Excellent communication, internal partner management, facilitation, and cross-functional partnership skills. Preferred Experience: Experience supporting Salesforce Marketing Cloud in a complex enterprise environment with multiple business units or customer journeys. Experience with additional marketing automation platforms such as Marketo, Adobe Campaign, Oracle Eloqua, or HubSpot. Experience supporting marketing automation transformations, platform migrations, business process redesign, or large-scale capability initiatives. Working knowledge of AI-enabled marketing automation, personalization, campaign operations, or workflow capabilities. Experience supporting global marketing teams in edtech, SaaS, digital learning, publishing, or similarly complex organizations. Desire to influence the future of marketing and have fun! Join us in our mission to drive innovation in education and help learners achieve their dreams through your outstanding marketing automation expertise! Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws. Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io. About Cengage Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education. Compensation At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. ( to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy . The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location. Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range. In this position, you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program. This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below. 15% Annual: Individual Target $101,900.00 - $163,000.00 USD Cengage, a global edtech company, supports learners, educators and institutions across more than 100 countries. With products serving nearly 16 million digital users across the Higher Education, School, Work and English Language Learning markets, we’ve built a learning ecosystem that connects education to employment. We combine trusted content, AI-powered insights and scalable digital platforms to power learning for every future and drive meaningful outcomes at every stage of the learning journey. #J-18808-Ljbffr Cengage Group