Marketing Jobs Over $300K

What a week it’s been in the ad world! The shockwaves from the mega-merger of the industry’s largest holding companies are still reverberating, leaving many in Adland grappling with questions about job security and future prospects.

Here on CMO Ladder, we’ve been focused on the marketing job market on the client side. However, we’ve quietly been keeping tabs on agency-side opportunities as well. Up until now, my non-compete from previous roles has kept me from talking out loud on this topic. But today, let’s unpack a few numbers that might catch your eye.

As of 2nd December, there were 13,463 agency marketing jobs available globally—a sharp 18.1% drop year-on-year. That’s nearly 3,000 fewer positions compared to this time last year. The decline has been particularly pronounced since late October, as you can see in the chart below.

This shift has been bubbling under the surface for a while now, but what does it mean for the future of agency roles? That’s anyone’s guess at this point.

On a brighter note, the outlook for client-side marketing jobs is far more optimistic. At the moment, there are 35,810 marketing roles available in the US alone (sourced directly from company career pages, not job boards or recruiters). That’s a 10% increase compared to last year!

Of those openings, 4,282 are senior-level positions (Director and above), reflecting a healthy 12.4% growth year-on-year. Perhaps even more encouraging is that nearly half of these senior roles now come with salary transparency.

Here’s the money talk:

• Median pay for senior marketing roles: $149,999

• Median pay across all marketing positions: $80,506

Median salaries by seniority:

• SVP/Head of Marketing: $199,992

• VP/Director of Marketing: $159,994

• Marketing Manager: $115,201

• Marketing Specialist: $72,498

Median salaries of Senior Marketing Roles (directors and above) in major US cities:

• New York: $155,002

• Los Angeles: $152,506

• Chicago: $149,999

• Miami: $134,992

• Houston: $95,046

• Dallas: $134,992

• Philadelphia: $134,992

• Atlanta: $132,506

• Washington: $135,002

• Boston: $135,002

It’s clear the client side of the industry is still building momentum, even as agency roles face turbulence. The story of marketing jobs is evolving—what lies ahead remains to be seen!

*These data are provided by our partner, Aspen Technology Labs, which monitors over 8 million jobs across 160,000 career sites in real time.

Senior Director, Technical Marketing @ Nvidia

• Posted: 9 days ago

• Location: Santa Clara, CA

• Compensation: $360,000 - $517,500 base

Our first role under the oscilloscope this week is NVIDIA. NVIDIA has been the talk of the town since the widespread adoption of AI and the ascent of their stock price. My favorite analog for NVIDIAs success is that they are making the spades and shovels in the gold rush, which might be where the real money is at.

A quick LinkedIn search will indicate there are roughly 17K employees in the US, and of these, the marketing and comms function is modest in size, with around 500 people working in that field at NVIDIA.

Recent postings in the function include Product Marketing Roles, of which there have been 16 in the last year, plus 6 in Investor Relations and 5 in mainstream social and influencer marketing.

NVIDIA has a notoriously flat structure, with Jensen, their CEO, clocking 50 direct reports. I’d love to know what you think, but I consider a normal top # of direct reports for a CEO of a large company should be no more than 15.

While they don’t have a CMO, there are a few individuals in that area, specifically:

Jay Puri: As Executive Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, Jay oversees global sales, business development, and partner alliances. My fellow Saratogian Greg Estes is Vice President of Enterprise Marketing, and he leads marketing initiatives for NVIDIA's enterprise products and solutions. Then, there’s Azita Martin leading the retail team. She is responsible for global go-to-market strategy.

We could be wrong, but our assessment is that this role likely sits in Greg’s group. This group of people in Technical Marketing appears to have very varied backgrounds, including obvious places like Intel but less obvious places like retail, IT services, and gaming. The skills in the team are equally diverse, from systems engineering to project management to creative writing.

If Taligence had been retained to fill this role (and to be clear, we have not – we are never the agents of the jobs we highlight!) I’d look to traditional places such as AMD, Intel, and Google Cloud, as well as Dell and CISCO, who have a deep understanding of product-market fit inside of the data center space.

There are a few great clues in the JD that I’d use to power my elevator pitch if I were a candidate. One is “getting to the crux of the matter” with stakeholders. This is an opportunity to describe how you parsed information to its bare bones in prior roles. Show examples of prior C-level communications and be sure to demonstrate a profound understanding of the datacenter customer landscape.

VP of Global Customer Marketing @ Qualtrics

• Posted: 6 days ago

• Location: Seattle, WA

• Compensation: $269,500 - $449,500 base

Next up, Qualtrics. If you don’t know them, they were founded in 2002 and have co-headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah.

They specialize in survey tools. At its core, it’s a SaaS platform that enables organizations to collect and analyze data on customer, employee, product, and brand experiences. The global marketing and comms team is roughly 150 people strong, with 100 of them based in the US. This team reports to a relatively new CMO, who joined from Vimeo about 6 months prior and with a mandate to “better serve our customers,” according to this release - so it’s not a surprise that she’s adding senior strategic firepower to this team with a Customer Marketing Leader.

If Taligence had the mandate to fill this role, we would be searching for this person from the next generation of information capture tools focusing on a delightful user experience, conversational models, and amazing reporting. I’d be looking to hire from the likes of Typeform, and Kore.AI, but not from SurveyMonkey (now Momentive), who are very much gen1 (IMO).

There are several B2B SaaS who I’d give top marks in terms of customer advocacy, and they include Hubspot, but also lesser-known Cockroach Labs, who were acknowledged as a Customers’ Choice vendor in the 2023 Gartner® Peer Insights™ ‘Voice of the Customer’ report.

If I’m showing up for an interview for this role, I’d be clear on how I’ve helped lock in customer loyalty and distract them from the shiny new offerings of agile competitors.

PSST! Want the inside track on the hottest marketing jobs in the U.S.? A paid subscription to CMO Ladder unlocks exclusive access to salary insights, detailed job listings, and expert analysis. Stay ahead in your career and join our community of marketing professionals today.

Partner 22, Paid & Performance Marketing @ a16z

• Posted: 5 days ago

• Locations: San Francisco, CA I New York City, NY I Los Angeles, CA

• Compensation: $267,000 - $312,000 base

Have you ever worked for a startup founder who has a limited understanding of marketing and unreasonable expectations? Here’s your chance to work with as many as <checks notes> .... 17 of them in a single year, for a single salary 😊

For those who don’t know a16z, they are a firm focused on investing in companies and accelerating the growth of that portfolio. Sometimes, they create Partner roles to support demand for specific skill sets - and it’s not a surprise that Paid Media and Performance marketing is a skill in high demand with their startups. As we noted in our report in Fall, overall vacancy growth year over year for “growth” marketing was up 35%.

The a16z portfolio includes companies valued at more than $44bn and across multiple competitive sectors, including AI, bio, crypto, healthcare, and gaming. Big names you’ve heard of, like Airbnb, Figma, and Databricks.

This role partners with their earlier stage, less famous startups and is not for the faint-hearted. This will be ideal for a growth hacker marketer who is obsessed with the experimental use of paid budgets and optimizing LTV/CAC and who craves constant variety.

We aren’t the first to say it, but the obsessively optimizing LTV/CAC thing will only get you so far without brand investments and creativity. As one of our CMO friends pointed out recently, there’s only so much demand to capture, and with lots of companies doubling down on performance, there’s only so much you can gain at a reasonable cost without focusing on the brand.

Although it sounds like a great role at face value - you won’t struggle to get hired at any startup with a 2yrs stint on your resume servicing a16z stable of companies - As we see it, there are a few things amiss….

The JD expects the candidate to handle everything from strategic planning to hands-on execution across multiple portfolio companies in 1-3 month sprints. This breadth makes it hard to discern the primary focus of the role. Is this a strategic advisor role or an operational growth manager?

All the VC buzzwords are in here. Terms like “best-in-class,” “laser focus,” and “relentlessly focusing” add fluff but fail to substantiate the actual value or scope of the role.

Don’t even get me started on the laundry list of qualifications and skills.

In sum - this JD has strong foundational elements but suffers from excessive breadth, vague value propositions, and a lack of focus. It risks alienating top-tier candidates who are either unsure about the role’s focus or deterred by unrealistic expectations. Tightening the scope and injecting more personalization could make this role feel less like a laundry list of tasks and more like an inspiring opportunity.

If I am hiring for the role, I’d hire from a mid-sized performance marketing or ABM agency that works directly with founders. Where else would you find a person who can switch gears and focus so frequently? Alternatively, a fractional “Performance Marketing” CMO with a passion for emerging tech like web3/crypto or health can get under the skin of the very unique audiences (both B2C and B2B) that some of these businesses will need to engage and convert, fast.

This role has only been live for 5 days so you should get your skates on if it looks like a fit. One tip for applications: By nature, VCs are highly skeptical and more trusting of referrals from people they know and trust. So, look for a referral route via your connections, ideally an a16z talent partner – a quick search showed me there are at least 40 of them.

If you’ve worked for an a16z-backed startup and it was a success, dial up that story. And if you’ve worked for a portfolio startup backed by a close rival like Sequoia, Index Partners, Tiger Capital, Benchmark, or Lightspeed, be sure to include it on the resume.

VP Marketing @ Seclore Technology

• Posted: 1 week ago

• Location: San Francisco, CA

• Compensation: $350,000 - $500,000 total package

A stark contrast to the audacious requirements of the a16z job, this one leaves some of the painting up to the successful candidate.

This opener paints a very clear picture of a successful Indian business who are already winning accolades for being a top employer in the US.

Seclore, founded in 2003, is a privately held company specializing in data-centric security solutions. Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with additional offices in New York, Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia, Seclore serves a global clientele across various industries, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and government sectors.

The role leaves more open than it closes off, both in terms of the requirements (Broad B2B marketing) and the interpretation of what’s needed. I love the pragmatism of “Strike a balance between aggression and feasibility,” the simplicity of “Ensure the marketing plan remains aligned with the overall company strategy and budget,” and the humility of “Listen to feedback from customers, partners, and investors to guide the company’s overall marketing efforts.”

In 2025, a lot can be learned from this. Job descriptions should welcome and include, not exclude. If you’re a B2B - they are often your most clicked ‘consumer’ branding.

If Taligence had this assignment (and Shraddha Reghe, if you are reading this, let’s dance!) I would be looking for people who are working for B2B SaaS companies with a reputation for a high level of ownership and at a similar or slightly later stage of growth, such as entrepreneurial outfit, Miro, or Monday.com, who encourage innovation and proactive problem-solving.

If you are a candidate for this role, speak to your ability to help shape and create effective strategies, which synch beautifully with over-arching company strategy and your ability to be a magnet to hire and keep great talent.

Your career deserves the best tools for success, and don’t forget your friends. Please consider sharing CMO Ladder with your network and help them tap into premium job opportunities and actionable insights. Together, we’re shaping the future of marketing careers - and we have some juicy end-of-year reports incoming that are more on point than any government stats.

VP, Marketing @ Dovetail

• Posted: 2 weeks ago

• Location: San Francisco, CA

• Compensation: $275,000 - $300,000 base

Just shy of our $300K salary cutoff, but we hope you forgive us for its inclusion in our top jobs list for the week. Love the mission here: “improve the quality of everything” and the category “insights hub.”

Funny that we were just talking about Qualtrics, this is not too far away. So, if you applied to Qualtrics, you might want to check this one out, too.

I can’t say enough good things about the copy here; kudos to whoever wrote it. This job posting balances being specific with broad reach and appeals to a wide talent pool, provided the core B2B SaaS experience is there. It builds in plenty of excitement and anticipation, too.

For cues in terms of what to highlight in resumes or interviews, here’s your biggest pointer: “You’ve built your career nailing product marketing in categories that don’t exist yet.”

When I think of companies like that, I think of Salesloft (Revenue Orchestration), Hubspot (Inbound Marketing), Slack (Team Communication), or Asana (Work Management). If I had this assignment, I’d be looking to companies like that for talent for sure.

A long, hard look at the careers page paints a very clear picture of the things that will help you stand out if you’re in a hiring process. Let me sum it up for you here:

• First impressions matter

• Belief in the mission matters

• Quality matters

And for them, at least, in-person collaboration matters. Fair enough; at least they are open about it. I just heard today that a large Ad-Holdco is moving to a 4-day forced RTO per week in the US from Jan 1 after months (years) of inconsistent comms on the topic and hiring people all over the US map for several years who are now impacted. Can you guess who that is?

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