Marketing Lead (Founding Marketing Hire)

Remote — US / Canada / Europe | Our client is a Swiss deep-tech startup

About the company

Our client is a Swiss deep-tech startup that owns the full stack — from thermal-camera hardware to AI-powered monitoring software — built to prevent fires and enable predictive maintenance on industrial sites.

Today the platform protects 50+ facilities across 9 countries, spanning wood products, chemical processing, waste recycling, and oil & gas — and the company hasn't lost a single customer in 3 years.

Despite a lean team (11–50 people), the company already runs a mature GTM tech stack with serious investment in AI tooling — unusual for a startup this size. The company is now building its US sales team, and this first marketing hire will build the inbound engine that fuels it.

The role

This is the company's first marketing hire. You'll build the function from zero — no existing team, no inherited processes, and real ownership over proposing your own budget and strategy.

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.

Who we're looking for

We're looking for a marketer who's done this before — someone who was the first or one of the first marketing hires at a startup and built the function themselves.

Must-have

• Track record of building a marketing function from scratch at a startup/scale-up — you were the one doing the work, not managing a large team;

• Hands-on execution experience: SEO, paid media (Google Ads), email marketing, event/trade show work;

• Comfort operating with limited resources and high ambiguity, typical of early-stage companies.

Strong plus

• Experience in deep-tech, hardware, robotics, or industrial B2B — you know how to speak to technical and plant-floor buyers;

• A background in sales before moving into marketing — you naturally think in terms of pipeline, not just reach;

• Experience transforming a GTM motion (e.g., a shift to ABM);

• German language skills and/or experience in the DACH/Swiss market;

• Concrete, personally-owned metrics from past roles — pipeline growth, MQLs/SQLs, conversion rates — that you drove yourself, not results attributed to a team.

The offer

• Format: fully remote — US, Canada, or Europe (CET overlap is a plus);

• Compensation: competitive package + performance-based variable tied to pipeline and ARR milestones;

• Ownership: report directly to the CEO and own AVIAN’s marketing engine end-to-end;

• Resources: budget authority for tools, experiments, events, and selective external support;

• Setup: high-trust, international environment with the freedom to build a lean, AI-forward marketing function your way.

Why this role

• You’re not inheriting someone else’s playbook — you’ll build the marketing function from zero at a company with proven product-market fit, real customers, and commercial traction;

• This is a genuinely hands-on builder role: strategy and execution stay close, without layers of management or a large team to coordinate;

• AI isn’t being added to an old marketing organization — you’ll have the mandate to design the function AI-first from day one, automating work that would traditionally require a small team;

• Your work connects directly to revenue: build pipeline, strengthen brand authority, and create repeatable growth systems alongside the expanding US sales team;

• You’ll have direct access to the CEO, budget authority, and room to experiment — with a clear goal of helping scale AVIAN toward $10M+ ARR.