Associate Director, Category Management

Interview Kickstart is a premier career transformation platform turbocharging tech careers through AI upskilling.

Founded in 2014 in Santa Clara by Soham Mehta, ex-Box Engineering Leader, and Ryan Valles, a transformative P&L leader and former CEO with a track record of scaling ventures, Interview Kickstart’s vision is to help every tech professional thrive in today’s fast-evolving tech industry.

With 40+ domain-specific courses—from foundational Machine Learning and Generative AI to Agentic AI, System Design, and DSA—Interview Kickstart equips engineers, PMs, data professionals, and tech leaders to accelerate their careers. Its 600+ instructors—industry practitioners, hiring managers, and senior engineers from FAANG+ companies—bring real-world insight and cutting-edge expertise into every classroom.

Beyond upskilling, Interview Kickstart offers end-to-end career support. Personalized mock interviews, resume and LinkedIn branding, career coaching, salary negotiation guidance, and performance-based job referrals ensure that your AI upskilling translates into real career breakthroughs. Over 25,000 professionals have already advanced their careers through Interview Kickstart.

Recognized by TIME x Statista and GSV 150 as a top EdTech company, Interview Kickstart is the go-to platform for tech professionals looking to future-proof their careers in the age of AI.

Position Overview

We are looking for an exceptional Category Leader (Associate Director) who combines category ownership with deep, hands-on performance marketing expertise. The ideal candidate is someone who can directly influence marketing scale, identify growth loops, collaborate closely with the Senior Performance Marketing team, build GTM strategies, and run the category like their own business.

This is not a passive category management role — we want a growth operator who understands funnels, CAC optimization, segmentation, experimentation, and the mechanics of profitable scaling.

What does the role entail?

Category & P&L ownership

• Own the business plan, revenue targets and full P&L for the category.

• Define, track, and improve key funnel metrics; lead daily/weekly/monthly performance reviews.

• Use data to drive prioritization across marketing, product, and sales initiatives.

Performance Marketing Strategy & Execution

• Partner closely with the Sr. Performance Marketing POC to scale paid channels across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, YT, Affiliates, and emerging platforms.

• Bring hands-on expertise in campaign structuring and optimization, creative + audience segmentation testing, Landing page / funnel experimentation, Performance Marketing diagnostics and scaling frameworks.

• Build a performance engine for the category — not just request campaigns, but co-own the scaling of the same.

Consumer Understanding & Product Strategy

• Identify latent customer needs through qual/quant research and integrate learnings into GTM, messaging, and pricing.

• Develop and refine category positioning, pricing strategy, and messaging frameworks.

• Shape new product ideas and enhancements based on competitor intelligence, market gaps, and user insights.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with Product/Tech, Curriculum, Sales, Performance Marketing, Ops, and Creative to deliver strong revenue outcomes.

What would excite you?

• Complete ownership; there is minimal management and extreme autonomy

• High pedigree, high caliber team

• Contribute directly to the success of the business & the top-line impact

• Work at the intersection of AI, education, and career transformation.

What would excite us?

• 5–9 years of experience in category management / growth / performance marketing roles in a consumer internet or EdTech business.

• Mandatory: Strong hands-on performance marketing experience (not just oversight).

• Proven experience in launching/scaling categories of any business line in a consumer internet company

• MBA or B.Tech from a Tier 1 college

• Solid knowledge of building GTM strategies, category management, and business development principles

• Radical Accountability: run the vertical like your own business

• Edtech market knowledge/Tech background is preferable.