Marketing & SDR Ops Manager

Overview

You're Hightouch's first dedicated Marketing & SDR Ops Manager, owning the entire inbound lead lifecycle from form fill to qualified opportunity. You manage HubSpot or Marketo at an admin level, build ABM workflows in Clay, route leads properly, and keep the SDR stack (Outreach, ZoomInfo, Chili Piper) running smoothly. You report to the Head of Revenue Systems and partner closely with demand gen, ABM, and SDR leadership.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series C+ (501 employees, established product)

Size: 500+ employees

Growth: Hiring their first dedicated marketing/SDR ops person suggests they're scaling demand gen and SDR motions after building initial RevOps foundation

Market Position: Composable CDP space - competing with Segment, mParticle, and legacy CDPs. Also positioning in the "agentic marketing" category which is newer/more educational

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• Inbound from website, content marketing, product-led components (they sell to data teams who already use warehouses like Snowflake)
• ABM campaigns targeting enterprise accounts
• SDR outbound to supplement inbound flow

Your Role in This: You don't generate pipeline - you make sure it flows correctly. When a lead comes in, does it get scored properly? Does it route to the right SDR? Does the handoff to AE work? Is Clay enriching the right data for ABM?

Team Structure: You're the first person focused purely on marketing/SDR ops. The Head of Revenue Systems (who posted this) has been doing this work alongside broader RevOps. There are dedicated SDRs and likely a demand gen team you'll support.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

HubSpot/Marketo Admin (30%) | Lead Routing/Scoring Fixes (25%) | ABM/Clay Workflows (20%) | Tool Stack Management (15%) | Reporting/Analysis (10%)

Key Activities

• HubSpot/Marketo Administration: Build and maintain workflows, forms, email templates, and campaign tracking. When marketing launches a new campaign, you set up the backend tracking and lead flow. When something breaks (leads not routing, scores not updating), you debug it.

• Lead Routing & Scoring: Manage the logic that determines which leads go to which SDRs and how fast. You adjust scoring models based on conversion data, fix routing rules when territories change, and handle the inevitable "why didn't I get that lead?" tickets from SDRs.

• ABM Program Support: Build and maintain Clay workflows that enrich account data, trigger ABM plays, and feed signals to the sales team. This is hands-on Clay work - building tables, setting up waterfall enrichment, connecting to other tools in the stack.

• SDR Stack Management: Administer Outreach sequences, manage ZoomInfo seat allocation and data quality, configure Chili Piper routing and handoff rules, ensure Sales Navigator integrations work. When an SDR says "my sequence isn't sending" or "this booking link is broken," you fix it.

• Process Improvement: Identify bottlenecks in the lead-to-opp flow. Maybe leads sit too long before assignment. Maybe the MQL definition is creating junk. Maybe the ABM workflow is too manual. You propose fixes, get buy-in, implement them.

• Reporting: Build dashboards showing inbound conversion rates, SDR activity metrics, campaign ROI, lead velocity. Marketing and SDR leadership need to see what's working. You provide the data.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You inherit existing systems: Someone else built the current setup. There will be technical debt, weird workarounds, and "we've always done it this way" logic you have to untangle before you can improve things.

• Balancing requests from multiple stakeholders: Demand gen wants better attribution. ABM wants more sophisticated Clay enrichment. SDRs want simpler routing. Your manager wants AI experimentation. You have limited time and need to prioritize, which means saying no or "later" frequently.

• Tools break and people blame you: Integrations fail. APIs have rate limits. Data doesn't sync. When an SDR misses their number because leads weren't routing for 2 hours, that's your emergency to fix even if it was a vendor issue.

• Scope creep: You're the first dedicated hire, so there's probably a backlog of "marketing ops stuff we've been meaning to fix." The wishlist is long. Setting realistic expectations about what you can accomplish is ongoing work.

What Success Looks Like

• Lead-to-opp conversion rates improve: If you're doing your job, more inbound leads turn into qualified opportunities because routing is faster, scoring is smarter, and SDRs have better data.

• Fewer "where's my lead?" firefights: Routing and assignment work reliably. SDRs trust the system. Marketing can see their leads are being worked.

• ABM program scales: Clay workflows you build enable the team to run more sophisticated ABM plays without proportionally more manual work.

• System uptime and data quality: HubSpot/Marketo runs smoothly. Data is clean. Dashboards are accurate. People stop DMing you "is this number right?"

Who You're Supporting

Internal Customers:

• SDR Team: They need good leads, clear assignment rules, tools that work, and visibility into their pipeline
• Demand Gen Team: They need campaign tracking, attribution, form/landing page tech support, and conversion data
• ABM Team: They need Clay workflows, account enrichment, signal tracking, and coordinated plays
• Revenue Systems Lead: They need you to own this domain so they can focus on broader RevOps strategy and AI initiatives

What They Care About:

• SDRs care about: Getting high-quality leads quickly, having the data they need to personalize outreach, tools not breaking during high-activity periods
• Marketing cares about: Proving ROI, knowing their leads are being worked, having the technical infrastructure to run sophisticated campaigns
• Leadership cares about: Pipeline predictability, conversion rate improvement, clean data for forecasting

Requirements

• 3-6 years in marketing ops or revenue ops, ideally at a B2B SaaS company that was scaling (you've seen volume increase and had to make systems handle it)
• Hands-on HubSpot or Marketo experience as an admin/builder, not just a user - you've built workflows, managed integrations, debugged sync issues
• Comfort with the SDR tech stack: Outreach, Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Chili Piper, Clay - you've configured at least a few of these before
• Experience with lead routing logic, scoring models, and campaign operations
• Ability to work independently and prioritize - you're the first focused hire, so no one's handing you a playbook
• Willingness to get technical with AI tooling - the RevOps team is investing in AI and this role will be part of experimenting with it