Confluent - Director, Product Led Growth Marketing

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Your role and responsibilities

About the Role: As the Head of Product Led Growth Marketing, you will lead a team that defines and optimizes Confluent’s product-led growth strategy from acquisition through high-value customer conversion.

You and your team will collaborate across Product, Marketing, Sales, Data Science, and Engineering to optimize signup quality, strengthen funnel conversion, and maximize downstream revenue impact. Your work will include building measurement frameworks, leading experimentation agendas, optimizing digital acquisition channels, including emerging discovery levers such as answer engine optimization (AEO), and translating performance insights into clear investment decisions. You will also design and refine the product-to-sales handoff, ensuring product signals translate into effective sales engagement. This role is critical to scaling product-led acquisition and demonstrating PLG as a durable, efficient growth lever for Confluent.

What You Will Do:

• Drive growth strategy and optimization : Define and optimize PLG growth strategy across the full funnel—from acquisition through high-value conversion—balancing efficiency, quality, and scale across channels, programs, and experiments in collaboration with Product, Marketing, Sales, and Data Science teams.
• Lead and scale a high-performing growth team: Recruit, mentor, and manage a multidisciplinary team of growth marketers and analysts; foster a culture of high-velocity experimentation, accountability, and continuous learning while aligning individual development with Confluent’s strategic goals.
• Optimize digital marketing and channel performance : Evaluate paid marketing, organic, and product-led acquisition channels; translate performance insights into investment decisions; test and scale high-performing programs across both traditional and emerging discovery channels, including answer engine optimization (AEO).
• Build measurement frameworks and experimentation rigor : Establish metrics, models, and analytical frameworks that assess channel quality, funnel health, cohort behavior, and early indicators of long-term customer value; lead a disciplined testing agenda to accelerate learning and improve conversion.
• Strengthen product-led sales motion and GTM alignment : Design and optimize the handoff from product-led users to sales-assisted conversion; partner with Sales and Product on GTM strategy, qualification, routing, and feedback loops; ensure alignment across product launches, marketing campaigns, activation flows, and nurture journeys.
• Evolve PLG for AI and agentic workflows : Partner with Product and Engineering to integrate AI-driven evaluation/personalization, agent-based customer interactions, and intelligent automation into growth workflows—positioning Confluent's PLG motion to capitalize on emerging AI use cases and developer behavior shifts.

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• 8+ years in product management, growth marketing, growth strategy, or growth analytics with a focus on product-led growth, funnel optimization, experimentation, and revenue impact; 2+ years in a leadership role managing high-performing teams.
• Deep understanding of growth marketing and PLG best practices—including acquisition strategy, digital and paid marketing, funnel analysis, lifecycle optimization, experimentation design, and best-in-class PLG tooling and workflows (e.g., product analytics platforms, reverse ETL, activation tools, attribution and experimentation frameworks).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with strategic thinking ability; experience diagnosing complex funnel issues and translating analysis into clear decisions. SQL required , with experience in Hex, Tableau, Amplitude, BigQuery, or similar platforms preferred.
• Experience in enterprise software or SaaS, with proven ability to collaborate across Product, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Data Science; excellent communication skills for both technical and executive audiences.
• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to move solutions forward in ambiguous, fast-moving environments; proven track record leading and mentoring teams to deliver exceptional results.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience in developer tools, cloud/data infrastructure, usage-based business models, or other technical, developer-led product domains.
• Familiarity with AI-driven growth strategies, agentic workflows, or integrating LLMs and intelligent automation into marketing and product-led motions.
• Track record designing and scaling product-to-sales handoff strategies, lead qualification models, or hybrid PLG-sales conversion funnels in high-growth B2B SaaS environments.
• Deep expertise in advanced experimentation methodologies and building rigorous measurement frameworks for attribution, incrementality, and lifetime value prediction.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM Software infuses core business operations with intelligence—from machine learning to generative AI—to help make organizations more responsive, productive, and resilient. IBM Software helps clients put AI into action now to create real value with trust, speed, and confidence across digital labor, IT automation, application modernization, security, and sustainability. Critical to this is the ability to make use of all data, because AI is only as good as the data that fuels it. In most organizations data is spread across multiple clouds, on premises, in private datacenters, and at the edge. IBM’s AI and data platform scales and accelerates the impact of AI with trusted data, and provides leading capabilities to train, tune and deploy AI across business. IBM’s hybrid cloud platform is one of the most comprehensive and consistent approach to development, security, and operations across hybrid environments—a flexible foundation for leveraging data, wherever it resides, to extend AI deep into a business.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

Projected Minimum Salary per year

158,000.00

Projected Maximum Salary per year

296,000.00

Position type

Professional

Some travel may be required based on business demand

Company

(0147) International Business Machines Corporation

Shift

General (daytime)

Is this role a commissionable/sales incentive based position?

City / Township / Village

State / Province

Georgia, Minnesota, Texas, New York, North Carolina, Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, California

Country

United States

Work arrangement

Remote

Area of work

Enterprise Operations

Employment type

Regular

Contract type

Regular