Head of Product Marketing

Exa

Not specified

Posted · Verified on Ashby

Location: San Francisco, California
Salary: Salary range USD 260,000 - 315,000 / year
Work mode: On-site
Employment: Full-time
Source: a16z
Posted: Nov 13, 2026
Found: Nov 13, 2026

Job Description

From Exa's job board on Ashby.

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 Head of Product Marketing to be the bridge between what we build and how the market hears about it.

About the Role

You'll lead the product marketing function: hiring and managing product & technical marketers who ship content for both customers and our sales team. This is a player-coach role, so you should enjoy being in the trenches with the team, able to write positioning, frame launches, evaluate competitors, and pitch customers.

This role demands a technical background since you will spend time with engineers, and you will need to understand retrieval, agents, and APIs. It is also imperative that you be fluent with AI tools, both to drive team productivity and to understand how our AI-forward customers are doing their jobs.

This role bridges product marketing to the product/engineering org. The person in this role will ensure that our fast-moving product roadmap translates into a steady stream of high-impact launches, announcements, and demos. Conversely, this role should bring market feedback into the prioritization process. You will be the person to surface valuable features and evaluate competitive positioning, with the ultimate aim of building the world’s best search engine for AI agents.

This role is based in-person at our San Francisco HQ.

What You'll Own

The launch calendar

Own the conversion of the engineering roadmap into a sequenced calendar of launches, announcements, and demos. Decide what gets a moment and what ships quietly, and make sure every launch that deserves attention gets a coordinated one. Success is measured by launch cadence and the reach of launch (coverage, signups, developer buzz).

Competitive intelligence

Document the competitive landscape: who is shipping what, where we lead, and where we need to be wary. Help train our sales team to educate customers how Exa can best meet their needs. Success is measured by our win rate.

Positioning and messaging

Own the positioning and messaging architecture for Exa. Maintain a consistent structure, and fill it in yourself for major releases. Success is measured by clarity and consistent adoption.

Content for website home & product pages

Ensure our website tells the story: the homepage, product, industries, and use case pages. You own the message, navigation, and page structure, while Digital Marketing owns the site mechanics, performance, and conversion surfaces. Success is measured by website freshness and visitor satisfaction.

Interlock with product

Be the trusted channel between marketing and product/engineering. Sit close enough to the work to know what's coming, translate engineering features into market vernacular, and synthesize market signals to shape our roadmap (such as win/loss, customer needs, adoption by segment, etc). Success is measured by market share and customer consumption.

Team leadership

Manage, coach, and grow the product marketing team, starting with 4 headcount today. Set the bar, develop people, and build a function that ships without you in the room. Success is measured by the caliber of the team and by their output trajectory under your stewardship.

What Success Looks Like

  • Positioning is consistent, technically credible, and used across the company.

  • Launches increase in reach and impact

  • Competitive gaps are surfaced and prioritized with evidence

  • The website is compelling for developer audiences, leading to high conversion

  • Sales is well-supported with assets and training for high win-rate and fast sales cycles

  • PMM team grows in capability, able to ship when you’re out-of-office

  • Engineering welcomes your collaboration because you make the product better.

You Should Have

  • 8+ years in product marketing or product management at a B2B technology company, with meaningful time on the more technical, roadmap-facing end.

  • A genuinely technical background. You can hold a conversation with engineers about retrieval, agents, and APIs, and you have the credibility to push Engineering on competitive gaps.

  • Experience managing a team of 3 or more, with evidence you developed people.

  • A track record turning a roadmap into launches with impact.

  • Deep competitive intelligence experience, synthesizing signals into decisions about what to build or how to position.

  • Excellent writing. You can still write positioning when it counts.

  • Evidence of influence without ownership: a time you changed what a product team prioritized using market evidence, without having authority over the roadmap.

  • A proven AI builder mindset: you've shipped tools & assets using agents, not just used ChatGPT.

Nice to Have

  • A background as an engineer, or a computer science or technical degree, before moving into marketing or product.

  • Experience at an API-first, infrastructure, or developer tools company.

  • Domain depth in search, retrieval, RAG, or agent frameworks.

  • Experience as the marketing counterpart to a founder-owned roadmap, and a track record of making that relationship productive.

  • Experience building a product marketing function from small beginnings at a high-growth startup.

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.

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