Lifecycle Marketing Lead

About OpenRouter
OpenRouter is the AI routing and infrastructure layer that enterprises use to access, manage, and optimize the best large language models across providers—without lock-in, capacity constraints, or unnecessary cost. We power some of the most advanced AI teams in the world by giving them the flexibility to move fast, scale confidently, and stay future-proof as models evolve.
As enterprise adoption of AI accelerates, OpenRouter sits at the center of how organizations operationalize LLMs across research, product, and production workloads.
The Role
We’re looking for a Lifecycle Marketing Lead to own and evolve the end-to-end customer journey—from signup through activation, sustained usage, and reactivation.
This is a hybrid product growth + lifecycle marketing role. You will design the systems that turn product usage signals into timely, relevant interventions across email, and in-product surfaces. Success in this role requires comfort working across an API-first product and a web-based admin interface, and the ability to translate usage patterns across both into measurable lifecycle outcomes.
You’ll work closely with product, engineering, data, and business development to reduce time-to-value, increase usage and feature adoption, and improve long-term retention—owning strategy while remaining hands-on in execution. This is the foundational role in the Lifecycle Marketing team and will shape how the strategy and team evolve.

What You’ll Do

• Own onboarding, activation, and early lifecycle performance. Design and continuously improve the new user journey to reduce time-to-first-value, increase repeat usage, and drive early adoption of core product capabilities across API and dashboard experiences.

• Build and operate lifecycle programs driven by product usage. Own lifecycle strategy across welcome, activation, engagement, expansion, and reactivation. Translate product events and usage thresholds into triggered journeys across email and in-product channels, partnering with an agency for design and execution where appropriate.

• Run experiments that compound product-led growth. Design, execute, and analyze experiments using tools like PostHog to improve conversion, adoption, and retention. Maintain a focused experimentation cadence tied to clear lifecycle and revenue outcomes.

• Support PLG-to-sales motions with high-quality signals. Define and operationalize signals that identify high-potential accounts based on usage behavior, and build automated flows that enable the BD team to engage with the right context at the right time.

• Define, measure, and communicate lifecycle success. Establish clear lifecycle metrics and benchmarks (activation signals, engagement patterns, retention and reactivation rates), and use them to inform priorities, trade-offs, and ongoing optimization.

• Partner cross-functionally to ship the journey. Work closely with product, engineering, data, and sales to align on lifecycle priorities, influence instrumentation and product surfaces, and ensure lifecycle systems reflect how customers actually use OpenRouter.

What We’re Looking For

• 7-10 years of experience in lifecycle marketing, growth marketing, product growth, or adjacent roles—ideally in PLG or developer-focused products.

• Strong analytical instincts and experience working directly with product usage data and experimentation.

• Hands-on experience with lifecycle and experimentation tooling (e.g. email platforms, marketing automation, PostHog or similar).

• Track record of working directly with engineers, designers and analysts to bring projects to life.

• Clear understanding of how onboarding, activation, and lifecycle systems drive product-led growth.

• Comfort owning strategy while executing tactically in an early-stage, evolving environment.

• Strong cross-functional communication skills and ability to work effectively with product and engineering partners.

Nice to Have

• Experience with API-first, infrastructure, or developer-tools products.

• Prior experience building lifecycle systems from scratch.

• Familiarity with customer data platforms, enrichment, or CRM workflows.

• Technical or growth-engineering background enabling lightweight automation or instrumentation.

Why OpenRouter

• Work at the center of the AI infrastructure stack as enterprises define how they adopt LLMs.

• High ownership and autonomy to define how developer education and community scale.

• Opportunity to shape a foundational function at a fast-growing company.

• Fully remote team with a culture of autonomy and trust.

• Competitive compensation, including base salary and equity.