Founders Office (GTM + Growth) (2 to 7 years - Developer tool/Data/Open-source)

This role is with one of our portfolio company.

Why this role exists:

The product already has strong technical pull. The product works. The community is growing. The benchmarks are real. The priority now is turning OSS traction into a repeatable growth engine. We are hiring a founding OSS Growth & Developer GTM Lead to own developer growth, open-source adoption, community, positioning, content, and OSS → paid conversion.

This role exists to turn open-source adoption into pipeline and pipeline into a compounding growth motion. You will own the growth loops around GitHub, content, community, partnerships, technical storytelling, and product-led conversion. This is not a pure marketing role. You will work closely with founders, engineering, and early customers to build the playbook for how the company scales distribution globally.

This is not a content coordinator role. You will ship content, run experiments, sit close to product decisions, activate the community, and build the cadence that turns growth from founder-led instinct into a repeatable system. If you read “figure it out” as a feature, not a bug, this is the seat.

What you’ll own

1. OSS → Paid conversion engine

• Identify high-signal OSS users: enterprise domains in Slack, heavy GitHub engagement, docs-to-Cloud signup journeys, self-hosted telemetry signals
• Build the product-led sales motion, scoring model, triggers, handoff to founders/SDR
• Own the “when to reach out” logic and the first-touch playbook; Define triggers, lifecycle journeys, onboarding flows, and nurture sequences
• Close the loop: which OSS users became pipeline, which became revenue, why

2. Demand gen across developer channels

• Own developer growth across GitHub, Hacker News, Reddit, YouTube, newsletters, technical communities, and search
• Run benchmark-led narratives, technical deep dives, comparison pages, and launch campaigns
• Build repeatable growth loops around releases, contributors, and community engagement
• Run and optimize paid / unpaid experiments across high-intent channels

3. Content & technical narrative

• Own the content calendar. Every asset has a conversion path,  demo CTA, lead magnet, or nurture hook.
• Translate engineering depth into sharp commercial narratives
• Partner with engineering to translate depth into sharp, shippable narratives  no fluff, no hype, benchmarks with receipts
• Maintain consistency across website, outbound assets, decks, demos, and product messaging

4. Community & partnerships

• Activate the 600+ engineer - Slack as a pipeline source  programs, office hours, contributor recognition, champion identification
• Plug into adjacent communities: Apache Iceberg Slack, Spark / Kafka Community, Modern Data Stack groups, local data meetups
• Creator partnerships with data-engineer YouTubers, podcasters, and newsletter writers
• On-ground: Iceberg Summit, Current, Data Council, Apache events, hackathons, founder-led dinners. If it moves the pipeline, we do it.

5. Product & packaging feedback

• Bring customer and market feedback into product and packaging conversations
• Partner with founders on pricing, onboarding, packaging, and self-serve conversion mechanics
• Track competitive positioning and evolving market narratives

6. OSS growth systems & analytics

• Build dashboards for OSS → paid conversion, channel attribution, activation metrics, and pipeline influence
• Create experimentation frameworks for acquisition and conversion
• Maintain growth tooling across CRM, analytics, enrichment, and automation systems
• Build scalable playbooks for future GTM hires as we scale
• Help shape the GTM org: hire marketing/sales and specialists under you, raise the execution bar, evolve reporting for 10× scale

What success looks like

By Day 30

• You know the product, the ICP, and the competitive landscape cold
• Clear mapping of OSS user segments and growth opportunities
• First growth experiments and content initiatives shipped
• You’ve published the first diagnostic: top 50 OSS users we should be talking to, and why

By Day 90

• OSS → paid routing and scoring logic operational
• Multiple acquisition channels consistently generating qualified pipeline
• Comparison pages and technical content beginning to compound organically
• Community programs and contributor motions live

By Day 180

• Predictable pipeline contribution from OSS and growth channels
• Measurable improvements in activation and conversion metrics
• Strong developer brand presence across relevant communities
• Scalable growth systems and reporting cadence established

What we’re looking for

Must-haves

• 2–6 years in growth, US GTM, content, community, partnerships, or startup ops, in a role where you owned revenue or pipeline outcomes, not task lists
• High agency. You move without waiting for tight briefs or constant check-ins.
• Comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and on-ground work
• Strong writing. A cold email, a landing page, a Show HN post, and a pitch deck — all four sound like the same brand.
• Technical curiosity. You don’t need to write Go, but you should be able to read a benchmark, understand CDC, and explain why the company is different from competitors without looking it up.
• Commercial instinct. You think in pipeline, win rates, ICP fit, and conversion funnels — not just impressions and reach.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior exposure to developer tools, open-source, or data infrastructure (dbt, Airbyte, Fivetran, Confluent, Databricks, Snowflake, PostHog, Supabase, etc.)
• Experience with PLG or OSS commercialization motions
• Experience building technical content or developer communities
• You’ve personally shipped something that drove revenue — a campaign, a comparison page that ranks, an outbound sequence that booked meetings, a community program that converted
• Comfort on the commercial stack: Apollo, Clay, HubSpot / Attio, Mixpanel, n8n, PostHog, Claude Cowork

What you’ll get

• A seat at the founders’ table - context, decisions, real skin in the game
• Budget and autonomy to run experiments 
• A category still being defined, a product engineers already love, and benchmarks that speak for themselves