Director, Product Marketing

Rain Bird · United States · $232k – $372k · posted today ago

Listing supplied by Himalayas. 101 Careers did not originate this post and applications are handled by the employer.

About this role

Overview

Rachio is looking for a Director of Product Marketing to own how Rachio decides what to build, how we position it, and how we bring it to market across hardware, software, and subscriptions. This is a senior leader role at Rachio and the owner of our go-to-market (GTM) processes: the mechanism that takes an idea from concept through business case, launch, and post-launch iteration, and helps to surface key debates and to align cross functional teams (across Product, Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, Support, and Marketing) to a shared set of goals.

The scope spans smart lighting, smart sprinkler and hose controllers, partner and OEM products, and the software and subscription experiences that sit on top of them. It's inherently cross-functional and inherently commercial: you are measured on adoption, revenue, and channel performance, not on the volume of collateral produced. The right person is equally comfortable running a customer research plan, writing a pricing and positioning narrative for the exec team, and sitting in a firmware trade-off conversation with engineering to understand what a feature actually does before deciding how to sell it.

A note on how this role works. Rachio runs a flat organization that maintains a high ownership and fast paced start-up culture. As such, this is a senior individual contributor role. Your influence comes from the quality of your thinking, the clarity of your writing, and your credibility with the people who own the functions you depend on - not from headcount. It has large ownership and depends on your ability to form clear, concise data-driven strategies that earn trust on the team and drive decisions. If you're looking for a role where you set direction and a team executes it, this isn't that role. If you want the leverage of shaping a category-leading portfolio without the overhead of a large org, it is.

Responsibilities

Own the GTM process

Build and run the end-to-end GTM process that moves opportunities from ideation to in-market execution, including setting the strategy, collecting feedback, sizing of opportunities, determining key debates and decisions with clear business cases, stage gates, launch readiness, and post-launch review.
Set the strategic goals and success criteria for each initiative up front, and drive alignment on them across Product, Engineering, Finance, Operations, Sales, Support, Marketing, and others.
Own launch readiness as a mechanism, not a meeting: clear owners, clear dates, clear go/no-go criteria, and an honest retro afterward.
Identify where the process itself is the bottleneck and fix it. This role is expected to build repeatable GTM motions and systems that can scale your work across teams.

Be the senior product marketing voice in roadmap and product development

Partner with Product Management to shape the roadmap that’s led with data: market sizing, customer research, competitive intelligence, channel input, and knowledgeable ways to leverage AI to organize the data into tangible next steps.
Maintain a working understanding of the market: competitive lineups, adjacent smart home platforms and protocols, pro channel dynamics, and where the category is heading.

Positioning, messaging, and pricing

Define positioning and messaging architecture for hardware, software, and subscription offerings, and translate technical capability into language customers and pros actually use.
Own the single source of truth for each product: positioning, claims, feature availability, competitive comparisons, FAQs, and objection handling.
Develop pricing and packaging recommendations in partnership with Product, Sales, and Marketing: good/better/best structures, subscription tiers, channel-specific SKUs, promotional strategy. Each should include financial modeling to support the recommendations.

Launch and channel execution

Lead integrated launches across the professional channel, retail, and D2C.
Build the enablement that makes the channel effective: support of pro training, distributor and rep materials, retail line reviews, packaging and shelf messaging, product spec and comparison tools.
Partner with the Brand Studio and Marketing team to translate positioning into campaigns and measure what they return.
Action and close the post-launch feedback loops: what's confusing customers, what's driving returns, what priorities we need to improve CSAT.
Lead international expansion opportunities with agency and contractor support where it makes sense.
How to size new country expansion and how to build brand awareness in these regions with targeted customer segments.

Voice of the customer and measurement

Own the customer research agenda across homeowners and professional installers: qualitative and quantitative, primary and syndicated.
Instrument launches so success is measurable: adoption, attach and activation rates, sell-through, ASP, retention, NPS.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

10+ years of product marketing, GTM, or closely related commercial experience, including significant time owning initiatives end-to-end.
Comfort operating as a hands-on individual contributor. You write the narrative and docs, build the model, and run the launch yourself rather than assigning it.
Demonstrated ownership of a full product lifecycle from concept through launch and iteration, with results you can speak to specifically.
Experience marketing connected hardware, consumer electronics, IoT, or technical products, including the realities of long hardware lead times, supply constraints, certification, and channel timing.
Experience marketing software or subscription offerings: adoption, attach, retention, and monetization.
Track record of driving direction and alignment across product, engineering, finance, operations, and sales without owning those functions.
Strong analytical foundation: comfortable building the model, working in spreadsheets and BI tools, and defending the assumptions.
Exceptional written communication. Distill a complex set of decisions into a written narrative a leadership team can act on.
Bachelor's degree.
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

Experience building GTM or NPI processes from scratch, or materially rebuilding one that wasn't working.
Experience in two-step distribution or professional trade channels (irrigation, landscape, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, building products) alongside retail and D2C.
Experience with smart home platforms and protocols: Matter, Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and have enough technical fluency to be useful in engineering conversations.
Experience with outdoor products, lighting, water management, or the sustainability categories.
Experience with partner, OEM, or co-marketing programs.
MBA or advanced degree.

Salary range for candidates based in California: $248,000 - $372,000

Salary range for candidates based in Colorado - New York- New York City or Maryland : $232,000 - $348,000

Salary ranges include base salary and annual incentive bonus if applicable.

Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.