OST: Marketing Hiring (Marketing/Content Offsite Q4 2025) #386
Description
While we were in Portugal, I invited everyone to join a hiring chat to review planned roles and hear thoughts. It was an OST-style retro/forecast on the 2025 hiring plan.
We focused on challenging roles, plan progress, and new priorities. This wasn’t about consensus or votes — just surfacing big ideas, progress, emergencies. I am not a democracy.
We left future design roles out, since @lottiecoxon is already preparing a five-year illustration plan and @corywatilo didn't attend.
Retro
| Team | Hiring Manager | Role | Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing | Joe | Product Marketers | 4x | Hired 2, paused further hiring. Very challenging role. Cleo and Sara are in their first 90 days. |
| Marketing | Joe (Lottie as hiring lead) | Graphic designer/illustrator | 1x | In progress — superdays ongoing. Moved up to late-Q3 priority. |
| Marketing | Cory | Production designer | 1x | Done. Daniel Hawkins is in his first 90 days. |
| Marketing | Joe | Community Manager | 1x | Open. |
| Marketing | Joe | Partnership Manager | 1x | Next planned role. |
| Content | Andy | Post-prod editor | 1x | Done. Jordo hired. |
| Content | Andy | Video editor | 1x | Done. Alex hired. |
| Content | Andy | Dev Ex Engineer | 1x | Cancelled. |
| Content | Andy | Dev Content (Guides) | 3x | Hired 2 — Edwin and Vincent. |
| Content | Andy | Dev SEO specialist | 1x | Done. Nat in first 90 days. |
| Content | Andy | Newsletter writer | 1x | Lost Lior, effectively -1 capacity. |
We planned 16 hires. Cancelled 3, leaving 13 active. Hired 8, with 2 still open. Remaining roles (e.g. Partnership Manager) are low priority and not blocking anything.
Community Manager Role
Originally proposed by @ivanagas as an Influencer Manager, this evolved into a broader Community Manager role. This is our second attempt at hiring for it within Marketing.
Ian, @Zaltsman, and I discussed splitting the role. There’s clear potential in influencer marketing — pursuing more creators, coordinating launches, and exploring micro-collabs. Daniel and I are confident we can drive results here, especially if it works closely with our other goals.
The social media side is different: it’s content distribution, closer to the Content team. It’s not my focus or passion as a hiring manager.
Decision: We’ll split the role into:
- Influencer Manager: High-priority Marketing hire focused solely on influencer marketing.
- Social Media Manager: To live within Content, opened later by @andyvan-ph.
Illustrator Role
Lottie’s illustration plan is in progress and will shape most of this, but we discussed overlap with animation skills. @corywatilo wants a front-end engineer with animation experience; @alexvanleeuwen-posthog is exploring a similar video hire. Lottie noted animation is blocking the current illustrator role and can be taught easily.
Decision: @lottiecoxon decided to drop the animation requirement to speed up hiring and avoid overlap.
Future Roles
We’ll draft a new hiring plan by end of quarter. It’s helped avoid overlap and align with talent planning. Andy and I will co-own it.
High-priority considerations:
- Partnership Manager: Still valuable, but we’ll validate the channel first. Progress is slow, and hiring now won’t speed things up. I want to punt it to Q1.
- YouTuber: High-priority Content hire to produce YouTube tutorials and video content. @andyvan-ph and @alexvanleeuwen-posthog will propose.
Do More Weird
We brainstormed new, unusual roles to expand reach and creativity. These are things we think could paint interesting directions and be fun to explore. We'd love feedback.
Dismissed ideas or ones I just flat veto-ed at the start:
- PR person
- Brand Manager
- DevRel person (too undefined)
Ideas we liked:
- Game Developer: @lottiecoxon suggested micro-games for site/app — more HogWars!
- Viral Marketer: @ivanagas proposed a marketer focused on stunts and YouTube virality.
- Collab Expert: @joethreepwood suggested a role for collabs with creators/brands — merch takeovers, limited editions.
- Joy-Sparking Consultant: @ivanagas proposed someone focused on delighting users, helping them hit PMF.
- Sign Spinner: @natalia-amorim pitched hiring someone in SF to walk around dressed as a hedgehog. Mobile billboard.