Senior PLG Growth Marketing Manager, Activation and PQL

Runpod is the AI Developer Cloud, used by more than 500,000 developers to build, train, deploy, and serve AI workloads. We are a remote-first company operating at the intersection of developer experience, production AI infrastructure, and efficient compute economics.

The marketing team owns brand, product marketing, content, growth, demand, design, and developer relations for a developer-first PLG motion with an emerging sales-assisted enterprise motion. We move fast, ship in public, and make decisions with imperfect data. If you want to own a number, see your work in production within days, and shape how Runpod becomes the AI infrastructure developers trust, this is the team.

We are hiring a Senior PLG Growth Marketing Manager to own the developer journey from sign-up through activation, self-serve conversion, and product-qualified lead generation. This is a senior IC role for someone who has operated a PLG funnel, understands developer acquisition, and can turn product behavior into revenue signal.

What success looks like

• More high-intent developers sign up for Runpod.
• More new users reach meaningful activation quickly.
• More self-serve usage converts into paid usage and qualified PQLs.
• Sales gets cleaner handoffs from product behavior, not generic MQL scoring.
• The growth program has a visible testing cadence, clear dashboards, and repeatable learnings.

Your impact

• Own the sign-up, activation, self-serve conversion, and PQL funnel end to end, with quarterly targets tied to new sign-ups, activation rate, self-serve ARR, PQL volume, and PQL quality.
• Build the experimentation muscle for our PLG motion across landing pages, sign-up flow, pricing, console onboarding, lifecycle programs, and in-product prompts.
• Shape how developers evaluate Runpod as our positioning evolves around AI Developer Cloud, developer experience, full lifecycle workflows, mature business readiness, and proven economics.
• Connect marketing, product, brand, design, analytics, and sales around one funnel view. PLG does not work without a tight operating loop.

Responsibilities

• Sign-up and conversion. Own the path from first visit to sign-up to first paid usage. Improve conversion across the homepage, key landing pages, pricing page, and sign-up flow.
• Activation. Partner with product and design on in-console onboarding. Build lifecycle programs across email, in-product messaging, and community that reduce time-to-first-pod and lift activation rate.
• PQL generation. Define and refine our PQL model with sales and product. Build the in-product triggers, scoring logic, lifecycle plays, and sales handoff motion that make the model useful.
• Growth campaigns. Concept, run, and measure cross-functional campaigns aimed at acquiring and converting developers, ML engineers, infrastructure engineers, and AI-native companies.
• Experimentation. Maintain a structured test program with hypotheses, instrumentation, readouts, and a bias toward tests that change what we do next.
• Analytics and reporting. Own the PLG growth dashboard. Pull from Snowflake, PostHog or comparable product analytics, CRM, GA4, and lifecycle systems. Surface insights weekly that change decisions, not just reporting.

Requirements

• 6+ years of B2B growth marketing experience, with at least 2 years owning sign-up, activation, self-serve conversion, lifecycle, or PQL metrics as a senior IC.
• Hands-on PLG experience across sign-up, activation, conversion, expansion, and self-serve to sales handoff.
• Direct experience defining or operating a PQL model with sales and product, including product signals, scoring, routing, and conversion measurement.
• Strong analytical ability. You are comfortable with SQL or comparable tools and can build your own dashboard when needed.
• Experience marketing to developers, ML engineers, infrastructure engineers, or technical buyers.
• Fluency with a modern growth stack such as HubSpot or Marketo, Customer.io or comparable lifecycle tooling, PostHog, Amplitude, or Mixpanel, GA4, and Looker or comparable BI.
• Strong writing and editing judgment. You can brief a copywriter, edit a landing page, and write the first version yourself when speed matters.
• Successful completion of a background check.

Preferred

• Experience at an AI infrastructure, GPU cloud, dev tools, cloud infrastructure, open-source, or developer-first SaaS company.
• Built or scaled a growth function from a small team into a structured program with clear KPIs and operating cadence.
• Familiarity with AI/ML workloads, model deployment, inference, GPU compute, serverless infrastructure, or developer workflows.
• Experience with community-led growth across Discord, Reddit, GitHub, Hacker News, technical events, or open-source communities.
• Prior Series A through Series C startup experience.

What You will Receive

• The competitive base pay for this position ranges from $160,000- $200,000. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Runpod and will be narrowed during the interview process based on the candidate's experience, qualifications, and location.
• Meaningful equity in a fast-growing company. Everyone on the team receives stock options.
• Generous medical, dental, and vision plans.
• Flexible PTO.
• Remote-first work with an inclusive, collaborative team using Slack as the main form of internal communication.
• $1,200 home office and equipment stipend.

Runpod is committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and upholding the principles of equality and respect for all individuals. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We welcome every qualified candidate eligible to work in the United States, however, we are currently unable to sponsor employment visas.