Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.

Your impact

Handshake is hiring an experienced and strategic Sr. Director, Lifecycle Marketing, Product-led growth to lead efforts in designing, optimizing, and scaling our customer journey to drive acquisition, engagement, retention, and expansion of small businesses. If you’re passionate about data-driven growth and crafting impactful customer experiences, we want to hear from you!

In this role, you’ll be the architect of the customer journey, driving engagement and conversion of our large body of free employer users. You’ll also collaborate closely with our PMM and Demand team to drive awareness of Handshake among small and medium businesses, leading to free job creation. You will be close partners with cross-functional teams, including Product, and Sales to drive awareness and job creation to build marketing programs that increase product adoption and drive measurable growth in a PLG environment, ultimately leading to upsell into enterprise sales when appropriate.

This position will be based in our San Francisco office location and requires a hybrid work week.  

Your role

• Lifecycle strategy: Develop and own the end-to-end customer lifecycle strategy to maximize user engagement, retention, and monetization.

• Onboarding optimization: Design onboarding flows and campaigns that educate, activate, and convert new users into power users.

• Engagement & retention: Build targeted campaigns to re-engage inactive users, nurture active users, and reduce churn through tailored communications and interventions.

• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner with Product, Data, and Customer Success teams to align lifecycle initiatives with business goals and user needs.

• Experimentation & growth: Implement A/B testing and multivariate experiments to optimize campaign performance and customer touchpoints.

• Data-driven insights: Leverage data analytics to understand user behavior, segment audiences, and refine lifecycle strategies.

• Expansion & advocacy: Identify opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, and converting free users to paid tiers, while nurturing loyal advocates for referral programs.

• Team leadership: Lead and mentor a team of lifecycle marketing professionals, fostering a culture of creativity and performance excellence.

Your experience

• Experience: 8+ years in lifecycle marketing, retention marketing, or a related role, preferably in a PLG environment.

• PLG expertise: Deep understanding of product-led growth strategies and experience driving growth in SaaS or subscription-based models.

• Analytical skills: Strong proficiency in using data analytics tools (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel, Looker) and CRM platforms (e.g., HubSpot, Marketo, Braze).

• Customer-centric mindset: A passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences through targeted and relevant messaging.

• Strategic thinker: Ability to connect the dots between user behavior, business goals, and marketing tactics to deliver impactful outcomes.

• Leadership: Proven ability to manage and inspire a high-performing team.

• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence and align stakeholders.

Bonus areas of expertise

• Experience working with freemium or usage-based pricing models.

• Familiarity with customer feedback loops and NPS programs.

• Strong technical understanding of marketing automation tools and personalization platforms.

Compensation range

• Base Pay of $240K-$280K + bonus

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardles