--- title: 'Founding Growth Marketer at AthenaHQ' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-growth-marketer-athenahq-san-francisco-emfr6ydbejcm' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-12' --- # Founding Growth Marketer at AthenaHQ - **Company:** AthenaHQ - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $130k–$220k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-04-13 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/athena-hq/9f4824f2-17b2-4f86-8d45-004321b7ca25 ## Job description Founding Growth Marketer ## About AthenaHQ AthenaHQ is the leading platform for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), helping brands optimize their visibility across AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. Founded by former Google Search PM and backed by the creator of Google Image Search, Y Combinator, and angels from DeepMind, Anthropic, and OpenAI. We're working with brands like Coinbase, SoFi, Twilio to win in the new era of AI-powered search. We treat distribution like an engineering problem: building systems, running experiments, and compounding results over time. ## The Role We're hiring our Founding Growth Marketer to build the engine that takes AthenaHQ to $10M+ ARR. This is not a "run the blog and manage some paid spend" role. You'll own the entire growth function, working directly with the CEO and founding team to architect a repeatable, scalable revenue system. You will be responsible for both the fuel (the content, messaging, and creative that reaches our audience) and the engine (the channels, systems, and processes that distribute it and convert it into pipeline). ## What You'll Do Run Growth Experiments - Design and execute experiments to increase lead generation across channels - Test hypotheses, measure results, and report findings to the team - Double down on what works and build compounding growth loops - We won't judge you on failed experiments. We value curiosity and grit. Show us what you've got. Build Systems - Architect end-to-end systems that make growth repeatable, not ad hoc - Own the marketing-to-sales-to-CSM handoff: build seamless flows so contacts move through our pipeline without friction - Set up and manage the tools, automations, and analytics infrastructure that power our growth engine - You should have a high learning curve and be comfortable picking up new platforms from scratch Take Ownership - We operate on a high-agency basis. If you see an opportunity or a problem, you take action instead of waiting for permission. - Own results and entire areas of the company, not just tasks. At an early-stage startup, your scope expands as fast as you do. Be AI-Native - You've built an end-to-end project in Claude Code (or similar) that you're comfortable demo'ing - You use AI tools daily to move faster, think more clearly, and multiply your output - Be a power user of the AthenaHQ platform itself, providing daily product feedback to our product team ## What We're Looking For - No specific background or years of experience required. We care about your ability to do the job. - Strong critical thinking. You form your own hypotheses about markets and channels, you don't blindly follow playbooks. - Systems-oriented mindset. You think in loops, leverage, and compounding, not one-off campaigns. - Comfort with ambiguity. You can figure out what to do when nobody has told you what to do. - Bias toward action. You ship, measure, learn, and iterate quickly. - Clear communication. You can articulate what you're doing, why, and what you've learned. ## Why AthenaHQ - Category-defining company. GEO/AEO is one of the biggest shifts in digital marketing in a decade. You'll be at the center of it. - Real traction. We're not pre-product. We have paying Fortune 500 customers and strong revenue growth. - YC-backed. W25 batch, with top-tier investors behind us. - Direct access to leadership. You'll work side-by-side with the CEO and founding team every day. - Outsized impact. The growth systems you build here will directly determine the trajectory of the company. Details - Location: In-person at our San Francisco office, 5 days a week - Reports to: CEO AthenaHQ is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team members. ## About AthenaHQ ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: AthenaHQ provides an AI Search Optimization (AEO/GEO) platform that helps brands monitor, analyze, and optimize their visibility across major AI-powered search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs). - **Entity Type**: Private (startup, backed by Y Combinator and FCVC) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Andrew Yan (CEO), Alan Yao (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Artificial Intelligence, SEO/AIO (AI Search Optimization), Marketing Technology (MarTech) - **Target customers**: B2B, enterprise marketing teams, and brands looking to manage their presence across AI search platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, Grok) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “To help businesses thrive in the world of AI Search” — building the operating system for marketing teams in the era of AI-powered discovery. ## Products & Services - **AthenaHQ Platform (AEO/GEO Manager Command Center)**: A unified SaaS platform that provides cross-platform AI visibility tracking across 8+ LLMs, automated content optimization recommendations, competitive intelligence, citation analysis, and an executive dashboard with BI tool support (Tableau, Power BI, Looker). Includes the Athena Citation Engine (ACE) for oracle discrepancy detection. - **Citation Engine (ACE)**: A feature for citation source analysis and link building, helping brands ensure their content is accurately cited by AI models. - **Athena AI Agent**: A content optimization agent that provides self-learning content improvement, on-page and off-page actions, and prompt/response analysis. - **Athena Recommendation Engine**: Delivers automated content optimization recommendations to improve AI search ranking. - **API Access**: Programmatic access to platform data and add-on credits for custom integrations. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (private startup) - **Key Metric**: Total funding not publicly disclosed; backed by Y Combinator (YC), FCVC (seed investor in Coinbase, Instacart, Webflow, Rippling), and angel investors including Eli Schwartz, as well as current and former CMOs. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator, FCVC, Eli Schwartz (author and SEO expert), featured in Forbes, WSJ, and Business Insider. - **Growth Signals**: Trusted by hundreds of next-gen marketing teams including Paperless Post, Ollie, Checkr, and OneSignal. The company is growing fast with active hiring for multiple roles. The founding team includes former Google Search PMs, DeepMind alumni, and engineers from Cohere, ServiceNow, and Voiceflow. ## Competitive Advantages - **Founding team pedigree**: Built by leaders from Google Search, DeepMind, and ServiceNow — deep domain expertise in how AI search works from the inside. - **First-mover in AEO/GEO**: One of the earliest dedicated platforms for AI Engine Optimization, a rapidly emerging category as brands realize traditional SEO is being disrupted by LLMs. - **Multi-model coverage**: Tracks brand mentions and visibility across 8+ major LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, etc.) in one unified dashboard. - **End-to-end workflow**: Covers monitoring, analysis, optimization, reporting, and competitive intelligence — an integrated platform rather than point solutions. - **YC-backed pedigree**: Strong startup brand and network effects from the Y Combinator ecosystem. ## Strategic Focus - **Current priorities**: Scaling the engineering and GTM teams to capture the growing AI search optimization market; building the platform's AI agent capabilities; expanding enterprise customer base; deepening integrations with more LLMs and BI tools. - **Growth direction**: Becoming the "operating system" for marketing teams in the AI search era, moving beyond simple tracking to automated optimization and actionable intelligence. ## Why Work Here - **Culture highlights**: Described as a team of “world-class talent from YC, Google, DeepMind, and Cohere” that includes former founders, D1 athletes, and future founders who “take pride in their craft.” Emphasis on high-agency, ambitious individuals. - **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: In-person at San Francisco headquarters. The company has two total offices and expects employees to work on-site. - **Notable perks or engineering culture**: Engineering team includes staff who “mass-deployed Claude Code agents to every corner of the codebase” and runs “daily sauna standups” — reflecting a quirky, high-intensity, AI-native engineering culture. Building at the cutting edge of how AI changes marketing and search. - **For job seekers**: 5 open roles posted (Product Engineer, Growth Engineer, Senior Product Designer, Founding Growth Marketer, Founding Product Marketer) indicating a fast-growing, early-stage environment where impact is immediate and cross-functional collaboration is key. ## Sources 1. [athenahq.ai](https://athenahq.ai/) 2. [athenahq.ai/about](https://athenahq.ai/about) 3. [athenahq.ai/careers](https://athenahq.ai/careers) 4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/athena-hq](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/athena-hq) 5. 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