Product Marketing Director, Azul Platform Core

The Company

Millions of Java developers, hundreds of millions of devices, and the world’s most highly regarded business trust Azul to power their applications with exceptional capabilities, performance, security, value, and success. Azul customers include 36 percent of the Fortune 100, 50 percent of the Forbes Top-Ten World’s Most Valuable Brands, all ten of the world’s top-ten financial trading companies, and leading brands like Avaya, Bazaarvoice, BMW, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Telekom, LG, Mastercard, Mizuho, Priceline, Salesforce, Software AG, and Workday.

Azul is the only company 100% focused on Java. As the largest independent Java vendor, Azul has one of the largest Java engineering teams in the world, is a significant contributor to the OpenJDK project, and, with a customer satisfaction rating of 100%, provides the world’s best commercial support for OpenJDK. Azul is

a founding advisory board member of a new community hub for Java developers and users of OpenJDK called Foojay, “a Place for Friends of OpenJDK.”

• An innovator in taking products to market and driving thought leadership, awareness, and pipeline. Takes a portfolio-level view to define and build differentiated platform and application positioning, narrative, and messaging for a commercially successful, open source-based product with a disruptive value proposition. Understands that each incremental push to the market can be instrumental to disrupting and defining the Java category.
• Strategic thinker that looks out across the market and works with internal partners to lead and articulate GTM strategy & roadmap with identified milestones that meet company and marketing objectives for Platform Core, drive positive impact and scale our sales and marketing motions.
• Strategic partner to Product, Sales leadership, & Executive team for defining the market opportunity, product positioning and messaging, personas, use cases, and pricing/packaging. Brings the voice of the customer and sales into every conversation.
• Collaborates and communicates effectively with Executives, Sales leaders, Product leaders and marketing partners to lead and participate in cross-functional teams
• Builds relationship as a trusted partner to Product Management across the spectrum from high level strategy down to tactical execution. Partners with product management to translate vision for Platform Core as the leading commercial OpenJDK distribution through positioning, messaging, product subject matter expertise & sales enablement, standout product launches and content that results in increased awareness, funnel growth, competitive differentiation and customer stickiness.
• Primary provider of key messaging materials, sales assets, and enablement of those assets to the field, including presentations at onboarding, ongoing training, sales all hands, targeted power hours and 1:1s with sales team members, to uplevel selling motion and help sales achieve funnel growth.
• Knows how the Sales audience thinks; presents with credibility and authority in front of audiences both internal and external and is viewed as a Subject Matter Expert (SME)
• Directs GTM team to help identify repeatable sales motions and contribute to high-velocity and strategic sales plays.
• Conduct comprehensive market analysis and competitive research to provide Sales teams competitive points of differentiation, assets, and enablement in the rapidly evolving Java and DevOps ecosystem and landscape
• A strong partner to growth and digital campaign teams to jointly define marketing leading campaigns that drive awareness, leads, and pipe.
• A content author that can advance the quality, velocity and impact of demand generation activities and overall event experience through the creation of thought leadership and product content such as datasheets, blogs, videos, whitepapers, infographics, case studies, web pages etc.
• Works closely with marketing operations to track the impact of marketing programs and assets against marketing KPIs. 
• An instrumental contributor to corporate marketing, including AR, PR, blogs, content creation, and customer success.
• Collaborates with the product team and partner marketing to build differentiated value propositions, messaging, enablement, content, and presence for economic buyer/IT execs/CxOs, Engineering leaders, ITAM/SAM/Procurement and DevOps audiences
• Partner with sales and the customer success team to build an arsenal of customer spokespeople in any and every marketing asset. 

• 10 years of experience in enterprise B2B marketing in the product marketing function.
• Team player exceptionally skilled in collaboration and communication and building productive relationships with Product leadership, Sales leadership, marketing team members, and Executives
• Expert in working cross-discipline, knows how to manage by influence other disciplines, both in and out of marketing, to get things done and have fun working collaboratively as we win together.
• Believes marketing is a team sport – intuitively understands that ‘go fast go alone, go far go together’, recognizes others as masters of their craft, and trusts that together we are always better. Gives respect to get respect, and aligns to a decision and wholly commits to the results.
• (highly preferred) A subject matter expert with deep understanding of the OpenJDK and Java landscape and associated open source business models, DevOps, and developer technology. Deep technical chops.
• Proficiency in creating technical content such as white papers, case studies, and product documentation.
• Ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences. Assist in creating and maintaining technical content for the company website and social media channels. Familiarity with SEO best practices for technical content.
• Adaptability to rapidly changing technology landscapes
• Creativity in developing marketing strategies for technical products
• Expert in sales enablement with a deep understanding of what is important to the enterprise sales audience including account executives, sales engineers (SEs), BDRs, channel account managers and revops
• Ability to inspire and build confidence in Sales for their product line through in person and virtual presentations and interactions
• Gifted storyteller. Demonstrated success building product narratives that have resulted in category disruption and awareness.
• Experience building or guiding content for multiple personas in the sales cycle, including economic buyer/IT execs/CxOs, Engineering leaders, ITAM/SAM/Procurement, DevOps, and architects
• Extensive experience running product line marketing and interfacing with go-to-market teams for one or more products in a B2B company
• A customer fanatic; a candidate that understands that no one can tell our story better than our customers and knows how to work with sales (pre & post) to help bring customer spokespeople to the spotlight in all things marketing.
• Experience building competitive frameworks to inform company direction and field execution.
• (Bonus) Experience with both product-led growth and forward-thinking enterprise sales models, and how to seamlessly blend the two. Understands the importance and role of DevOps/developers as the key influencers in the sales cycle.
• Data-driven: seeks insights from data to inform repeatable sales motions to drive predictable, higher growth.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and meticulous attention to detail.
• Strong ability to plan and execute multiple projects simultaneously.
• Organize and plan technical webinars, workshops, and other events to showcase product features and engage with the target audience
• Develop long-term strategic plans for product positioning and market penetration
• Create and maintain a system for tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) to inform future planning decisions. Design and implement A/B testing strategies to optimize marketing campaigns and improve performance metrics
• Anticipate market trends and plan proactive marketing strategies to maintain competitive advantage
• Someone well versed in product marketing frameworks, but knows that instinct is what truly drives success.