Marketing Lead (Founding Marketing Hire)

About the role

This position represents the inaugural marketing appointment within a Swiss deep-tech startup that commands the entire operational spectrum from thermal-camera hardware development to AI-powered monitoring software designed for fire prevention and predictive maintenance on industrial sites. The company currently safeguards over 50 facilities distributed across 9 distinct countries, operating within sectors as varied as wood products, chemical processing, waste recycling, and oil & gas, while maintaining an unbroken client retention record for three consecutive years. Operating with a lean collective of 11 to 50 personnel, the organization already sustains a mature go-to-market technology stack and allocates serious investment toward artificial intelligence tooling, a characteristic that is uncommon for an entity of its scale. The enterprise is actively constructing its United States sales apparatus, and this specific marketing hire is tasked with establishing the inbound growth engine that will power that expansion. You will possess the autonomy to propose your own budget and strategic direction, owning the full lifecycle of the marketing function from a position of foundational influence. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will directly construct systems rather than delegate execution to external parties, shaping the earliest customer narratives of the brand. Your work will directly bridge the gap between technical product capabilities and the commercial demand required to accelerate pipeline creation and revenue validation.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Build and run inbound lead generation from scratch: SEO, Google Ads, email campaigns, and presence at industry trade shows;
• Execute the tactical work yourself - this is a hands-on role, not managing agencies;
• Work closely with the sales team to drive quality pipeline and a clear lead handoff process;
• Propose and defend the company's first marketing budget;
• Lay the foundation for a marketing function that will scale as the team grows;
• Own the creation of initial customer case studies and proof points to validate messaging;
• Conduct market feedback loops with industrial buyers to refine value propositions and positioning;
• Establish basic marketing analytics and reporting to measure channel performance and ROI;
• Coordinate with product and engineering teams to ensure messaging aligns with technical differentiators;
• Identify and prioritize the most effective trade shows and industry events for initial market entry.

Requirements

You must possess a track record of building a marketing function from scratch at a startup or scale-up, where you personally performed the hands-on work rather than managing a large team of specialists. It is essential that you have hands-on execution experience across SEO, paid media campaigns on Google Ads, email marketing workflows, and active participation in event or trade show activities. You must be comfortable operating within environments of limited resources and high ambiguity, which is typical of early-stage companies that lack established processes. A strong plus is demonstrated experience within deep-tech sectors, hardware, robotics, or industrial B2B environments where you understand how to communicate effectively with technical stakeholders and plant-floor buyers. You should have a background in sales prior to moving into marketing, which enables you to naturally think in terms of pipeline generation and conversion rather than only reach and impressions. Preference is given to candidates who have experience transforming a go-to-market motion, such as shifting toward account-based marketing strategies or similar structural changes. German language skills and/or direct experience in the DACH region or Swiss market are considered a strong advantage for this specific role. You must be able to present concrete, personally-owned metrics from previous roles, including pipeline growth, MQLs and SQLs, and conversion rates, that you drove yourself rather than results attributed to an established team. The role requires resilience, initiative, and the ability to self-direct work without constant supervision while maintaining a bias for action.

Practical notes

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