Influencer Marketing Manager

Kestra is the open-source orchestration platform, 30,000 GitHub stars, $36M raised, used by Bloomberg, JPMorgan, Toyota, Deutsche Telekom. We orchestrate infrastructure, data, AI, and business workflows from a single platform.

We grew to enterprise scale through community and word of mouth. Now we need to accelerate. Developer influencer marketing is the highest-leverage paid channel in the open-source infrastructure space, and we're building the function from scratch.

This is a hands-on, ownership role. You build the program, run it, and are accountable for its results.

Your missions

1. Source and qualify creators

Map YouTube creators, newsletter authors, podcasters, community figures whose audiences are platform engineers, DevOps leads, infra builders, data teams, technical founders.

Build a scoring system: audience relevance, engagement quality, growth trajectory, content fit. Maintain a ranked prospect pipeline.

Tools: Social Blade, Passionfroot, GitHub/Discord/Twitter signals, internal recs.

Monitor who other infra/dev tools companies sponsor. What's working, what gaps exist.

2. Negotiate, structure, and close deals

Own end-to-end: first contact, rate negotiation, contract, invoicing (net-30), follow-up.

Build and maintain a CPM pricing model benchmarking fair value by channel size, engagement, and placement type. Update quarterly with real deal data.

Formats: pre-roll, mid-roll, end-roll, integrations, dedicated tutorials, multi-video packages.

Request examples of previous ad reads before committing. Quality of the read matters as much as the audience.

3. Brief creators and manage delivery

Develop a modular messaging kit: what Kestra is, what it solves, who it's for, how to start. Not a script, a toolkit creators actually want to use.

Maintain a library of video assets, product demos, in-app recordings for B-roll.

Set up unique UTM links per creator/campaign Enforce: link in top 3 lines, verbal CTA mentioning Kestra on sign-up.

Align placement timing with Product Marketing: launches, feature pushes, competitive moments.

Review every placement within 48h of going live. Flag issues, track delivery against brief.

4. Manage the relationship lifecycle

Active recording of all creator relationships deal history, performance, comms log, renewal dates.

Move top performers into recurring deals: quarterly packages, ambassador programs, co-created series.

Handle underperformers directly: renegotiate, adjust format, or end the partnership. Clear and professional.

5. Expand adjacent channels

Test technical newsletters, dev podcasts, sponsored community content beyond YouTube.

Explore co-marketing: joint webinars, live coding sessions, "build with Kestra" series.

Feed creator conversation insights back into Product and Marketing, what resonates, what confuses, what competitors are doing.

6. Build the playbook

Document everything: sourcing criteria, outreach templates, negotiation frameworks, briefing kits, dashboards, reporting cadences.

Build a self-serve onboarding flow so new partnerships spin up fast.

How we measure results

You own a dashboard. These are the numbers on it:

CPM (Cost per 1,000 views): Negotiate rates, pick efficient channels, cut underperformers. Sessions (Unique visits from UTM links Link placement): CTA quality, audience relevance. Sign-ups (Accounts via UTM or self-reported mention): Messaging quality, audience fit, creator authenticity. Conversion (Sessions sign-ups %): Brief quality, landing page, targeting. Budget ROI (Spend vs. pipeline influenced): Portfolio mix, negotiation, doubling down on. winners Repeat rate (% of creators who renew): Relationship quality, fair dealing, good briefs.

Who you are

Not a generic marketing hire. We're looking for a specific type of person.

Background — one or more of these:

Agency vet: you ran influencer campaigns for tech or SaaS clients at a talent, media, or creator-focused agency. You know how to manage 20 partnerships at once and keep quality high.

Creator platform alumni:You understand the mechanics from the platform side and want to operate from the brand side.

Tech influencer world native: you were a creator yourself, managed creators, or worked in DevRel running sponsorship programs.

Dev tools operator: you did influencer or developer marketing at an open-source or dev tools company and saw what works firsthand.

Skills and instincts:

You know the dev/tech influencer landscape cold.

You think in funnels, not impressions. Views are nice, sign-ups are the point.

You're organized. CRM, budget tracker, content calendar, reporting template.

You write briefs that creators actually want to read. Clear, short, no jargon.

Comfortable async in a distributed international team. You don't need to be managed day-to-day.

Bonus:

You've used orchestration, CI/CD, or infra tools. Don't need to be a data engineer, but can hold a conversation with one.

Existing network of tech creators or creator managers.

Experience with PostHog, Dub, Hubspot, Common Room, Google Analytics and attribution tools.