Senior Director, Marketplace Experience Marketing

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s largest work marketplace, connecting businesses with highly skilled professionals worldwide. From entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 enterprises, companies trust Upwork’s platform to access expert talent, leverage AI-powered work solutions, and drive meaningful business outcomes.

Upwork’s AI-powered platform has facilitated over $20 billion in economic opportunity for professionals worldwide. With professionals spanning 10,000+ skills, including AI and machine learning, software development, sales and marketing, customer support, finance and accounting, and more, Upwork empowers businesses of all sizes to scale, innovate, and build agile teams.

Upwork is seeking a strategic, customer-obsessed Senior Director of Marketplace Experience Marketing to lead teams responsible for our product marketing touchpoints across our self-serve marketplace. This role is responsible for owning and optimizing the full journey—turning registrations into customers and deepening engagement through product marketing, lifecycle activation, and feature adoption strategies.

You’ll lead the teams focused on product marketing and lifecycle marketing, building branded experiences that deliver business outcomes, including onboarding, repeat usage, upsell/cross-sell, and long-term loyalty. You’ll work in lockstep with Product, UX, and Analytics to shape how customers engage with Upwork—from their first visit to meaningful value realization.

Responsibilities

• Define the Marketplace Experience Vision: Lead the creation and execution of an integrated GTM and lifecycle strategy that supports Upwork’s marketplace tiers and drives measurable adoption, engagement, and monetization.
• Own All Product Marketing Touchpoints: Lead marketing strategy and execution across onboarding, in-product messaging, lifecycle campaigns, and feature launches.
• Lead Lifecycle Marketing Across Channels: Own the end-to-end lifecycle strategy for both clients and freelancers, including off-platform communication and engagement. Define the calendar of messaging moments and work across brand, creative, and product to ensure every touchpoint drives connection, clarity, and value.
• Drive Strategic Planning: Own GTM planning across the organization to align product launch, lifecycle and adoption motions with corporate objectives and marketplace evolution.
• Operationalize Growth Execution: Translate high-level goals into executional roadmaps and funnel programs, ensuring conversion metrics improve across tiers, categories, and lifecycle stages.
• Improve Funnel Health: Define and track KPIs across registration, activation, hiring, and repeat usage. Identify bottlenecks and drive the roadmap to remove them.
• Champion Customer-Centricity:  Be the bridge between customer feedback and product leaders to drive holistic improvements to our product. Ensure messaging is grounded in customer needs and expectations, reflects good segmentation, and uses data signals.
• Enable Executive Clarity: Support GTM storytelling in exec-level forums—board decks, business reviews, and company-wide updates—with clear narratives around funnel impact and experience improvements.

What it takes to catch our eye

• 15+ years of experience in lifecycle, growth, or product marketing, ideally in a high-scale cutomer-centric business.
• Proven success owning product adoption, onboarding, lifecycle engagement, and communications that directly drive retention and revenue
• Experience crafting a voice that connects brand to business, and designing messaging strategies that resonate across channels and segments
• Deep understanding of customer journey design, onboarding UX, PLG mechanics, and behavioral targeting
• Strong leadership skills; ability to build and inspire multi-disciplinary teams
• Data fluency; ability to interpret KPIs and turn insights into action
• Experience with operational planning and GTM strategy across functions
• Executive communication skills; clear, concise, and grounded in impact
• Familiarity with Martech tools, customer segmentation, and growth KPIs.
• Passion for shaping how customers experience and succeed on a platform

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