Manager, Marketing Automation and Operations

Seattle Sounders FC & Seattle Reign FC•Renton, WA

6d•$110,000 - $160,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Manager, Marketing Automation & Operations is the technical and strategic owner of Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC’s marketing automation platform within the Lifecycle Marketing team. This individual is accountable for platform architecture, configuration, governance, deliverability, and privacy compliance across email, SMS, mobile push, in-app messaging, and paid media audiences. The role supports the clubs’ final transition from Salesforce Marketing Cloud and then builds the new platform into a foundation for both clubs’ lifecycle marketing programs. The position develops lifecycle stage models, lead scoring, and cross-channel journeys that advance growth goals and are measured by ticket, membership, and renewal revenue. It partners with Business Intelligence, which owns data pipelines, integrations, and enterprise reporting, to define platform data requirements, engagement-data flows, and reporting. In collaboration with Lifecycle Marketing, Ticketing, Digital, IT, and other internal stakeholders, the role establishes standards that enable marketers to launch campaigns independently while maintaining data integrity, brand control, and compliance across both clubs. This is an individual-contributor, full-time regular role reporting to the Senior Director, Lifecycle Marketing. It is based on-site at the Headquarters & Training Facility in Renton, Washington, Monday through Thursday, with flexibility on Fridays and periodically as needed. Periodic evening, weekend, and holiday work may be required, including match support. The employee must reside in Washington state upon hire, facilitate their own local travel, and be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in marketing operations and automation, including at least 3 years administering a marketing automation platform.
Experience integrating a marketing automation platform with a CRM, including lead management, lead scoring, and bi-directional data synchronization.
Hands-on experience with email deliverability, including domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and IP warming.
Experience running marketing automation for two brands in one instance.
Track record of running marketing operations work through AI agents and automation, with context, review steps, and data guardrails to use them safely.
Strong strategic and analytical skills, including interpreting campaign and revenue data and turning it into actionable recommendations.
Exceptional attention to detail and care with data.
Sound judgment, personal ownership, self-direction, and ability to work steadily under pressure and through change.
Collaborative approach and clear oral and written communication, including explaining technical decisions and processes to non-technical audiences.
Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to the organization’s values and mission.
Must reside within Washington state upon date of hire.
Must be able to facilitate own local travel.
Must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship.
No specific degree is required.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Salesforce CRM.
Experience with lifecycle models and audience segmentation inside a marketing automation platform.
Experience with Customer.io, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, or Braze.
Experience with customer data platforms such as Amperity.
Experience with email testing tools, Google Analytics, and BI tools such as Tableau.
Experience in sports or live events.

Responsibilities

Own and administer the clubs’ marketing automation platform, including workspace and project structure, user roles and permissions, data schema, API keys, and integration configuration; manage platform health, roadmap, audits, troubleshooting, feature adoption, vendors, and implementation partners.
Support the final transition from Salesforce Marketing Cloud by validating migrated audiences, journeys, and consent records during the parallel-run period, then lead post-launch platform build-out.
Set and enforce campaign production and governance standards across both brands, covering segmentation, setup, QA, launch, naming conventions, permissions, audit trails, and campaign calendars; serve as the escalation point for complex or revenue-critical sends.
Partner with Marketing Managers and Lifecycle Marketing to build targeted acquisition, retention, and member programs, and train and enable marketers to build campaigns independently, including responsible use of AI and automation features.
Own email deliverability for both clubs, including sending domain and IP strategy, separate sender reputations, domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI), IP warming, monitoring, and remediation.
Serve as the subject matter expert for GDPR, CCPA, CAN-SPAM, and other applicable privacy regulations; own compliance workflows, consent management, and suppression strategies.
Design, build, and maintain cross-channel journeys across email, SMS, mobile push, in-app messaging, and paid media audiences, including frequency and suppression rules coordinated with the Braze instance bundled with Jump for ticketing messages.
Partner with Business Intelligence to define platform data requirements, including the Amperity fan ID as the primary profile key, event and attribute schemas, inbound data feeds, and engagement data returned to the data warehouse; own platform data quality and collaborate on upstream data issues.
Lead experimentation and optimization, including A/B and multivariate testing, holdout groups, and incrementality measurement; translate results into insights and recommendations for Marketing Managers.
Build and maintain lifecycle stage models and lead-scoring logic as defined by Lifecycle Marketing with Ticketing, including MQL definitions, score decay, routing and writeback to Salesforce CRM, and suppression of fans in active sales conversations.
Own weekly, monthly, and quarterly campaign and journey performance reporting connecting programs to ticket and membership revenue, renewals, and lifecycle-stage movement, with club-specific and consolidated executive views.
Configure, govern, and measure AI and machine-learning features such as send-time optimization, predictive scoring, and generative copy assistance, maintaining brand guardrails and human approval; evaluate integrated technologies to identify automation opportunities and reduce tool overlap.
Use AI agents for routine campaign production, maintain the context they rely on, and review their output before it reaches fans.
Document platform processes, onboard users, and develop certification paths for marketers.

Benefits

100% employer-sponsored medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees and dependents.
Employer contributions to a Health Savings Account for employees enrolled in the HSA healthcare plan: $1,000 per year for employee-only coverage or $2,000 per year for spouse or family coverage.
Unlimited paid vacation, paid company holidays, and paid sick leave in compliance with Seattle’s Paid Sick and Safe Time ordinance.
Paid bereavement leave and paid jury duty leave.
401(k) retirement plan matching.
A $10,000 lifetime maximum fertility benefit through the healthcare plan.
Gender-neutral paid parental leave of 12–16 weeks, inclusive of Washington Paid Family & Medical Leave.
Employer-paid long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment coverage.
Complimentary tickets to matches.
Employer-funded ORCA cards for public transit.
Learning and development programs and resources.
Volunteer opportunities aligned with social impact goals and RAVE Foundation initiatives.