Vice President of Product Marketing

Job description

**About the Job** At Shakudo, we’re building the world’s first operating system for data and AI. We use the term “operating system” in the truest sense: just like iOS, Windows, or Linux, Shakudo’s end-to-end OS provides ever-evolving, fully automated, best-in-class open-source components tailored to each business’s unique needs. We are seeking a VP of Product Marketing to join our team as a builder-leader who will define how the market understands, evaluates, and adopts Shakudo. This is a high-visibility, hands-on leadership role for a strategic marketer who excels at translating deep technical capabilities into compelling narratives, driving market positioning, and equipping a growing GTM team to win. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will be responsible for building the product marketing function from the ground up — owning messaging, competitive intelligence, sales enablement, and launch execution — while maintaining a personal “in-the-arena” presence across deals, events, and analyst conversations. In this role, you will own the full product marketing lifecycle — from market research and positioning to content creation, sales toolkit development, and post-launch iteration. You will serve as a trusted partner to CTOs and Data Science leaders, helping them articulate the business case for governing models and running secure agents inside their own infrastructure. At Shakudo, our culture is results-oriented and performance-driven; we favor speed, judgment, and flat ownership over heavy management layers. ### Responsibilities •Define the Narrative: Own Shakudo’s market positioning, messaging framework, and value proposition across both the high-velocity Kaji SaaS wedge and the comprehensive Full Platform deployment. Translate technical depth into stories that resonate with buyers, practitioners, and executives alike. • Launch with Impact: Plan and execute go-to-market launches for new products, features, and integrations. Coordinate cross-functionally with Product, Sales, and Customer Success to ensure every launch drives pipeline, adoption, and market awareness. • Enable the Team: Build and maintain sales enablement toolkits — battlecards, objection handlers, demo scripts, ROI frameworks, and competitive playbooks — that empower AEs and SEs to win deals faster. • Own Competitive Intelligence: Develop and maintain a deep understanding of the competitive landscape across AI platforms, MLOps tooling, and data infrastructure. Translate insights into actionable positioning, content, and sales strategies. • Drive Demand: Partner with Demand Generation to craft campaigns, webinars, and content programs that generate qualified pipeline. Ensure every piece of content maps to a stage of the buyer’s journey. • Technical Storytelling: Create high-quality content — whitepapers, case studies, blog posts, solution briefs, and analyst materials — that articulates Shakudo’s differentiation and 1 drives market pull. • Analyst & Community Relations: Represent Shakudo in analyst briefings (Gartner, Forrester) and at industry forums. Build relationships that amplify our narrative and shape category definitions. • Customer-Driven Insights: Establish feedback loops with prospects, customers, and field teams to continuously refine positioning, identify market gaps, and inform product strategy. • Scale & Hire: Build, hire, and mentor a small but high-impact PMM team. Establish processes, templates, and rhythms that allow the function to scale alongside the business. ### Qualifications • 8+ years of B2B product marketing experience, with at least 3 years in a leadership role at a technical infrastructure, developer tools, or AI-Data platform company. • Proven track record of building and executing GTM strategies that directly contributed to revenue growth in the $2M–$20M ARR range. • Early-stage startup DNA — experience operating in a high-growth startup environment where you built programs from scratch with ambiguity and limited resources. • Technical fluency — ability to hold your own in a room of engineers. You can speak intelligently about on-prem vs. cloud, AI governance, and enterprise data architectures without needing a translator. • Strategic and hands-on — you can set a 12-month vision and also write the battlecard for tomorrow’s pitch. • Exceptional storyteller — written and verbal communication skills that make complex technical concepts clear, compelling, and memorable. • Cross-functional leadership — proven ability to align Product, Sales, Engineering, and Leadership around a unified plan. • Based in the Bay Area (Menlo Park office) and able to collaborate in-person with the team. ### A Plus • Experience marketing AI/ML platforms (e.g., Kubernetes, Snowflake, Databricks) or data infrastructure products. • Prior experience as a founding PMM or first marketing hire. • Background in regulated industries (HIPAA, FINRA) or enterprise security. • Existing relationships with Gartner or Forrester analysts. • Familiarity with PLG or usage-led growth models.