Senior Product Marketing Manager - Confluent

IBM
IBM

Marketing & Communications, Product

Remote

Posted on Sep 17, 2026
Introduction

We’re looking for a motivated and experienced Product Marketing Manager who has experience with software development and/or data architecture. This person will help drive top-of-funnel awareness and evangelize IBM Confluent’s core product message across our T1 and field events through keynotes, tech talks, breakout sessions, and more. Our target audience includes technical personas such as developers, architects, and technical executives.

As a Product Marketing Manager, you will be responsible for owning and/or influencing the messaging, positioning, and overall go-to-market strategy of IBM Confluent. You’ll also work closely with colleagues from Events, Field Marketing, Developer Relations, Product, Campaigns, Analyst and Press Relations, Sales, and other teams across the company to execute on key product marketing initiatives.

Your role and responsibilities

As a Product Marketing Manager, you will leverage deep client knowledge, market and product orientation, and competitive insights to inform product build decisions and define market requirements. You will apply strong messaging and positioning skills to craft and deliver compelling stories that drive product consideration and adoption.

Your primary responsibilities will include:

• Develop Market Requirements: Define market requirements that enable differentiated positioning and messaging, clearly explaining how IBM Confluent's offerings work in-market and the value they deliver to buyers and users.

• Craft Compelling Stories: Apply strong messaging and positioning skills to craft and deliver compelling stories that drive product, services, and solution consideration and adoption by leveraging client success stories, thought-leadership, market proof points, and analyst insights.

• Create Content for Different Audiences: Author content of varying technical depths (e.g., blogs, eBooks, whitepapers, reference architectures, web copy) for various personas (e.g., developers, architects, data engineers, tech execs) on IBM Confluent's category, products and features

• Lead Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate across marketing, communications, analyst relations, product management, development, design, client experience, ecosystem, and sales to align strategies, activate the market, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

• Drive Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategies: Lead data-driven strategies and outcome-focused marketing business plans to accelerate growth; analyze the marketing and product funnel to identify conversion gaps, diagnose performance drivers, and turn insights into recommendations that improve awareness, engagement, evaluation, and pipeline generation.

• Engage with Clients and Partners: Engage directly with clients, partners, and analysts to align strategies, activate the market, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

• Influence Product Roadmap: Identify any product gaps inhibiting GTM success for IBM Confluent and work with Product Management to prioritize users' needs into the roadmap

Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs.
Required education
Bachelor's Degree
Preferred education
Master's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise
  • 3+ years of product marketing experience supporting B2B SaaS products for technical users, or 5+ years of relevant experience in consulting, B2B SaaS or product.
  • Have strong product marketing skills that translate to clear copywriting, product evangelism, competitive positioning, and messaging.
  • Bring strong technical acumen - you can independently understand and explain complex products, architectures, and use cases while partnering closely with Product Management to validate technical accuracy.
  • Have a data-informed mindset and are driven to set measurable goals for every project you take on.
  • Are proactive and self-directed - you identify opportunities, create momentum, and drive initiatives from idea through execution without needing day-to-day direction.
  • Thrive in cross-functional environments and can effectively collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders and teams.
  • Lead with empathy and humility - you listen actively, value diverse perspectives, and build trust across teams and stakeholders.
  • Are incredibly organized and efficient—you take on complex projects and own them from start to finish.
Preferred technical and professional experience
  • Experience with Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, Apache Iceberg, data infrastructure, data architecture, cloud services, and/or distributed systems
  • Experience marketing technical infrastructure, developer tools, data platforms, or distributed systems
  • Hands-on experience with Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, stream processing, or real-time analytics
  • Experience using funnel analytics, experimentation, or customer and product data to diagnose and improve GTM performance
  • Experience shaping messaging for an emerging category or independently driving ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM has a global presence, operating in more than 175 countries with a broad-based geographic distribution of revenue. The company’s Global Markets organization is a strategic sales business unit that manages IBM’s global footprint, working closely with dedicated country-based operating units to serve clients locally. These country teams have client relationship managers who lead integrated teams of consultants, solution specialists and delivery professionals to enable clients’ growth and innovation. By complementing local expertise with global experience and digital capabilities, IBM builds deep and broad-based client relationships. This local management focus fosters speed in supporting clients, addressing new markets and making investments in emerging opportunities. Additionally, the Global Markets organization serves clients with expertise in their industry as well as through the products and services that IBM and partners supply. IBM is also expanding its reach to new and existing clients through digital marketplaces.

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Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

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ABOUT IBM

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Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

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IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

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