Customer and Partner Marketing

Job description

ABOUT EXA We raised a $250M Series C to build the search engine for AIs. Led by a16z, with existing investors Benchmark, Lightspeed, and YC doubling down, the round brings Exa's valuation to $2.2 billion. Exa is building a search engine for the AI era. Our Search API currently powers Agents, Fortune 500s and AI labs as we transform an industry that hasn't been disrupted since the 90s. We're a largely SF-based team of ~100 from Harvard, MIT, Meta, Google Research, ex-founders & dropouts alike. We are rapidly building the most intelligent search engine in history. We're high agency, low-ego, and united by the feeling that this is one of the last problems worth getting right. We are looking for a Senior Manager of Customer and Partner Marketing to turn our customers and our commercial ecosystem into our most powerful go-to-market asset. ABOUT THE ROLE Exa's best marketing is the work our customers ship on top of us. Today that proof lives in scattered Slack threads, sales calls, and the heads of AEs. This role turns it into an engine: a steady supply of credible customer evidence, a reference bench sales can draw on without asking permission, and co-marketing with the commercial partners who influence how companies buy infrastructure. You will own both sides of that coin. On the customer side: case studies, reference programs, advocacy, and the voice-of-customer loop that feeds product and positioning. On the partner side: joint launches, marketplace presence, co-authored content, and the mechanics of making a partnership produce pipeline rather than a press release. While our Developer Relations team owns technical ecosystem integrations and the developer community, you own commercial partnerships: clouds and marketplaces, agencies and consultancies, and technology partners where the motion is co-selling and co-marketing rather than a merged pull request. This is an AI-first role at an AI-first company. Interviewing customers, mining call recordings for proof points, and drafting a first-pass case study should be a workflow you build, not a queue you staff. This role is preferred in-person at our San Francisco HQ. WHAT YOU'LL OWN CUSTOMER EVIDENCE ENGINE Own the pipeline that converts happy customers into published proof: case studies, quantified results, quotes, logo rights, and technical deep dives written for a developer audience. Success is measured by volume of published, sales-usable evidence per quarter and by coverage across our priority verticals and use cases. REFERENCE AND ADVOCACY PROGRAM Build the reference bench: a maintained, tiered pool of customers willing to take calls, speak on stage, and vouch in a deal. Own the customer advisory board and the incentives that keep advocates engaged. Success is measured by reference request fulfillment time and by the share of late-stage deals with a reference attached. COMMERCIAL PARTNER MARKETING Own the marketing side of commercial partnerships: cloud marketplaces, agencies and consultancies, and technology partners with a co-sell motion. Joint launches, co-authored content, co-branded assets, marketplace listings, and partner-sourced demand. Success is measured by partner-influenced pipeline and by the number of live co-marketing motions with named partners. VOICE OF CUSTOMER Own the systematic loop that captures what customers actually say (win/loss themes, adoption blockers, competitive mentions) and routes it to Product, PMM, and leadership. Success is measured by whether positioning and roadmap decisions cite this input by name. PROOF LIBRARY AND ENABLEMENT HANDOFF Own the single source of truth for customer proof and partner assets, organized so a new AE can find the right story in under a minute. You produce the raw material; PMM for Enablement packages it into the pitch. AI-FIRST WORKFLOW DESIGN Design and deploy AI-powered workflows (Claude, call-recording mining, enrichment, drafting pipelines) that compress the time from customer conversation to published asset. If a step runs manually more than twice, you should be itching to automate it. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE - A predictable cadence of published customer evidence, with real numbers in it, not adjectives. - Sales can self-serve a reference or a relevant case study without a Slack fire drill. - Every priority vertical and flagship use case has at least one credible, public customer story. - Named co-marketing motions are live with our most strategic commercial partners, each with attributable pipeline. - Product and PMM treat your voice-of-customer synthesis as required reading. - Customers say yes to advocacy because the program gives them something back. WHAT THIS ROLE DOES NOT OWN - Technical ecosystem integrations, framework partnerships, and developer community: Developer Relations. - Demand generation campaigns and paid channels: Revenue Marketing and Digital Marketing. - Core product positioning, messaging, and launch narrative: Product Marketing. - Partnership sourcing, negotiation, and commercial terms: Partnerships and Sales. - Sales pitch, decks, and battlecards: PMM for Enablement. - Lifecycle email, nurture, and webinar operations: Lifecycle Marketing. - Field events and conference presence: Field Marketing and Field Events. WHO YOU ARE - 5+ years in customer marketing, partner marketing, or product marketing at a B2B technology company, with meaningful time at a high-growth startup. You thrive in ambiguity and don't need a playbook to get started. - Deep craft evidence: a portfolio of published customer proof you personally drove. You can point to specific case studies, name the metric in each, and explain how you got Legal and the customer to approve it. - Excellent writing. You can interview a staff engineer and produce something their peers will respect. - Comfort with technical subject matter. You do not need to code, but you need to hold your own on retrieval, agents, and APIs. - Experience running a reference or advocacy program that sales actually used. - Track record of co-marketing with commercial or platform partners, from joint plan through launch through measured outcome. - A proven AI builder mindset: you've shipped automations and internal tools using LLMs and workflow platforms, not just used ChatGPT. NICE TO HAVE - Experience marketing to developers at an API-first or infrastructure company. - Cloud marketplace experience (AWS, GCP, Azure): listing, co-sell, and marketplace-sourced pipeline. - Experience running a customer advisory board. - Multimedia range: you've produced customer video or launch content, not just documents. - Familiarity with the AI tooling landscape and the agent ecosystem. BENEFITS - Health and wellness: Premium medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus a monthly wellness benefit and a monthly commuter benefit for our SF team. - Fertility and family planning: Reimbursement for eligible egg freezing and related medical expenses up to a $15,000 lifetime maximum, plus 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents, whether through birth, adoption, surrogacy, or foster placement. - Life at Exa: Lunch and dinner served daily, an office stocked with snacks, coffee, and health supplements, fresh bread from a local bakery every morning, weekly milk tea deliveries, monthly picnics, and parties to celebrate the wins (and each other). - Visa sponsorship: We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and welcome applicants from all backgrounds and locations. Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.