Director, Product Marketing - Ecosystems and Growth

Onwards Together!

Illumio is the leader in ransomware and breach containment, redefining how organizations contain cyberattacks and enable operational resilience. Powered by the Illumio AI Security Graph, our breach containment platform identifies and contains threats across hybrid multi-cloud environments – stopping the spread of attacks before they become disasters.

Recognized as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™ for Microsegmentation, Illumio enables Zero Trust, strengthening cyber resilience for the infrastructure, systems, and organizations that keep the world running.

Location: 4 on-site days a week in Sunnyvale, CA Headquarters.

Our Team's Vision:

Our Marketing team illuminates and evolves the global brand, driving revenue and empowering future success for our Sales team. As a leader in Zero Trust Segmentation, we are dedicated to helping organizations prevent cyberattacks and mitigate the impact of ransomware.

Renowned for our innovative solutions and collaborative spirit, we foster an inclusive environment within Marketing and across the company. Join one of the industry's most creative and dynamic teams, where you'll discover opportunities to excel, be empowered to set ambitious goals and define your path to success!

Product Marketing at Illumio

The Product Marketing team at Illumio focuses on understanding the customer, technology, the ecosystem, market drivers, competition and customer needs with the responsibility of communicating product messaging and value to internal and external audiences. You will be part of a team responsible for developing positioning and differentiated messaging, defining go-to-market strategy, launching new solutions and driving thought leadership for the Illumio solutions. You will 'roll up your sleeves', 'dig in', learn, problem solve, be creative and do what it takes to win the market.

The Role

Ecosystems and Growth are two of Illumio's most important accelerants to pipeline and time-to-value: our technology and cloud alliance partnerships extend our reach into other vendors' install bases, and our Product Led Growth (PLG) motion turns Web Trial and Marketplace experiences into a fast, self-serve path to value for prospects and customers.

As Director, Product Marketing, Ecosystems & Growth, you will lead both disciplines as one connected strategy — building a bench that thinks about partner-led and product-led growth as a single system rather than two separate motions. You will lead a team of three: a Product Marketing Manager driving our strategic technology and cloud alliances, a Product Marketing Manager driving our Growth/PLG trial and marketplace experience, and a Technical Marketing Manager providing the technical depth behind both. You will report to the Head of Product Marketing and represent Ecosystems & Growth in cross-functional and executive planning.

This role also serves as the technical arm of product marketing. You are not just directing technical work through your Technical Marketing Manager — you are personally credible in front of a technical audience, comfortable architecting and building a compelling product demo yourself, and able to step in and own technical proof points for a launch, a partner integration, or a Trial experience when it matters.

Your Impact:

• Strategy and vision – Set the strategic direction for Illumio's Ecosystems & Growth practice, unifying alliance-led and product-led growth motions into a coherent plan for accelerating pipeline and customer time-to-value.

• Technical demo ownership – Architect and build the product demos that prove Illumio's value to partners, prospects, and the field — for joint alliance integrations, for the Trial and Marketplace experience, and for major launches. Set the technical bar the team's demo environments and assets are held to, and be hands-on building or rebuilding a demo yourself when the moment calls for it.

• Alliance marketing leadership – Own the joint messaging, positioning, and value propositions for Illumio's key technology and cloud partners, and ensure partner campaigns, co-sell enablement, and joint launches land with impact.

• Growth and PLG leadership – Direct the strategy for the Web Trial and Marketplace experience — the journeys, landing pages, nurtures, and trial assets that turn prospects into active users — and guide your team through execution.

• Team leadership and development – Lead, coach, and grow a team of three product marketers across alliance and growth disciplines, setting priorities, raising the bar on craft, and building their paths to the next level.

• Cross-functional and executive partnership – Act as the senior marketing voice to Business Development, Partner Sales, Product Management, and the Office of the CTO, and represent Ecosystems & Growth priorities at the leadership table.

• Integrated go-to-market planning – Build and direct integrated GTM plans that generate demand and pipeline through both alliance channels and PLG motions, tracking performance and reallocating investment based on results.

• Launch integration – Ensure every major product launch has both an alliance/partner motion and a Trial/Marketplace motion built in from the start, in partnership with the broader product marketing team.

• Market intelligence – Stay ahead of partner ecosystem trends, PLG and trial best practices from other vendors, and the competitive landscape, and translate that intelligence into strategy your team can act on.

Your Toolkit:

• Hands-on technical depth (required, not preferred): you have personally built product demos yourself, not just briefed someone else to build them, and can speak credibly to a technical buyer or a partner's engineering team. Candidates without direct, hands-on demo-building experience will not be considered for this role, regardless of strategic or people-leadership strength.

• 8+ years of product marketing experience in enterprise security, cloud, or infrastructure software, including at least 3 years leading and developing marketers directly.

• Proven success setting strategic goals for a marketing function and translating them into operational plans that a team executes against.

• Track record building technology alliance/partner marketing programs, PLG or trial-led growth motions, or both.

• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain relationships with key industry and technology partners.

• Strong storytelling, positioning, and messaging skills — able to translate complex technology and integrations into differentiated, customer-facing value.

• Exceptional cross-functional leadership: comfortable driving alignment across Marketing, Product, Sales, Business Development, and executive stakeholders.

• Comfortable setting and tracking KPIs for alliance and growth marketing programs, and adjusting strategy based on what the data shows.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to influence and guide senior executives.

• Ability to manage competing priorities across two distinct disciplines — partner marketing and growth/PLG — with a deadline focus.

Technical Depth (Must-Have)

• Can independently architect, build, and demo a working product environment — not just narrate a deck — for Illumio's own platform, a partner integration, or a Trial/Marketplace flow.

• Understands the technical fundamentals of Zero Trust, microsegmentation, and hybrid/multi-cloud environments well enough to build demos that hold up under technical questioning.

• Comfortable acting as the technical arm of product marketing: the person Sales, Solutions Engineering, and partners call when a demo needs to be built, fixed, or leveled up under a deadline.

• Able to translate a product or partner integration's technical capability into a demo narrative that lands with both technical and business buyers.

• Works closely with Product Management and Engineering to keep demo environments current as the platform evolves.

AI Fluency

• Demonstrates an “AI-first” mindset: uses AI tools daily to improve the speed, quality, and reach of your own work, and sets that same expectation for your team.

• Hands-on fluency with generative AI tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot for research, content drafting, competitive analysis, and positioning work.

• Working understanding of how AI fits into the marketing and sales systems your team touches — including tools like Marketo, Salesforce, Pendo, 6sense, and Highspot — enough to identify where AI can remove manual work from trial journeys, partner enablement, and campaign reporting.

• Comfortable evaluating and piloting new AI tools and making a clear-eyed build, buy, or adopt call for the team.

• Understands the basics of responsible AI use — what data can and can't go into a given tool — and coaches the team to the same standard.

Bonus Points:

• Experience working with or marketing to public cloud or hybrid cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Familiarity with Zero Trust, segmentation, or breach containment strategies.

• MBA or advanced degree in Marketing, Business, or a technical field.

Our Commitment

Illumio believes that an environment of unique backgrounds, experiences, viewpoints, and individual contributions creates a culture of belonging, drives our future, and makes us stronger together in support of our customers and their success.

All official job offers from our company are extended directly by our recruitment team and will be sent through an official E-Signature document for your review and signature. Please be aware that we do not ask for any personal information in the process of extending offers of employment, such as financial details or social security numbers. Upon acceptance of any offer, we will request such information as part of the onboarding process prior to or on your first day of employment, and only after completing a background check through an authorized third-party vendor. If you receive any communication asking for personal details outside of these processes, please contact us immediately to verify the authenticity of the request. Your security is important to us, and we are committed to a safe and transparent hiring experience.

For roles in San Francisco and Los Angeles: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Illumio will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.