AthenaHQ — Founding Growth Marketer

Type: Full-time | On-site (5 days/week) | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $100,000–$220,000 + 0.1%–0.4% equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available Reports to: CEO

AthenaHQ is the leading platform for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), helping brands gain visibility inside AI search surfaces such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. It treats distribution as an engineering problem — systems, experiments, and compounding loops — and already ships to Fortune 500 customers including Coinbase, SoFi, and Twilio.

Founded: YC W25 batch (founding year not stated) | Team size: Not stated | Total funding: Not stated Industry: GEO / AEO / AI-search visibility Website: athenahq.ai Office: San Francisco, CA Backing: YC (W25); angels including the creator of Google Image Search and individuals from DeepMind, Anthropic, and OpenAI

• Category-defining company: Building the leading platform in the emerging GEO/AEO space.
• Founding ownership: Own the entire growth function end to end, working directly with the CEO daily.
• Top-tier backing & customers: YC W25, marquee angels, and paying Fortune 500 customers.

• Intake was provided as a video on the role page with no transcript, so this section could not be populated from the page. Request the intake notes/transcript if a written summary is needed.

AthenaHQ is hiring its Founding Growth Marketer to build the engine that takes the company from early revenue to $10M+ ARR, owning the full growth function — organic growth, events, and partnerships — and deciding how to sequence and scale them. The role skews technical: building systems, shipping experiments, and using AI tools daily, not running a traditional marketing playbook.

• →Design and run growth experiments across channels with crisp hypotheses, measurement, and reporting
• →Build and scale the organic growth motion end to end
• →Stand up the events function — strategy, execution, and attribution
• →Architect and land growth partnerships that compound over time
• →Own the marketing-to-sales-to-CSM handoff, eliminating pipeline friction
• →Set up and run the tooling, automations, and analytics behind the growth engine
• →Serve as a power user of the AthenaHQ platform and feed daily product feedback to the product team

Tech stack: AI tooling (Claude / Claude Code), Clay, growth automation & analytics tooling (not otherwise specified)

• Deep, daily fluency with AI tools, specifically Claude or Claude Code — evaluated live on how you actually use them, not on what you claim
• A shipped, end-to-end project built in Claude Code or similar that you can walk through and demo
• High agency — takes ownership of outcomes and entire areas of the business, not just tasks, and ships without waiting for permission
• Technical growth mindset — thinks in systems, loops, and compounding, not one-off campaigns or playbooks
• Based in San Francisco and willing to work in person 5 days a week

• Has shipped and can demo an end-to-end project in Claude Code or similar. The founder evaluates this live.
• Daily power user of AI tools, not casual ChatGPT usage. Depth is screened for directly.
• A high-agency new grad beats a low-agency veteran with 2–5 years of experience.
• Seed to Series B operating experience. This is what weighs most on a resume.
• Technical growth profile, not a traditional marketer. Role skews technical and is more than Clay tables.
• Thinks in systems, loops, and compounding rather than one off campaigns.

• Traditional marketer profile whose AI usage stops at asking ChatGPT for copy ideas. The role was explicitly framed as more than making Clay tables, and the technical bar is high.
• Only large company experience with no seed to Series B exposure. Stage fit was flagged as the thing that weighs most on a resume.
• Vague or rehearsed answers about AI tool usage. Candidates are evaluated live on how deeply they actually use Claude, so surface level familiarity will not hold up.
• Low agency operator who waits for direction. This was called out directly as the single biggest filter, ahead of years of experience or pedigree.
• Playbook follower who runs tactics from a template. The role requires forming independent hypotheses and building systems, not executing someone else's plan.

Salary$100,000–$220,000Equity0.1%–0.4%Experience2–5 years (explicitly downweighted vs. agency — see flags)On-site policyIn person in SF, 5 days/weekVisa sponsorshipNone availableEmployment typeFull-timeLocationSan Francisco, CA

1. Personal Website?
2. Favorite AI/Claude Code System You've Built

No separate call-based Screening Questions section was present on the role page — only the two required form questions above and an untranscribed intake video.

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Initial Screen — Initial screen. Stage 3 — First Principles Assessment / Take-Home — Assessment / take-home. Stage 4 — Onsite — Onsite interview. Stage 5 — Onsite Followup — Onsite follow-up. Stage 6 — Work Trial? — Possible work trial. Stage 7 — Offer — Offer extended. Stage 8 — Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

Target companies — Clay

Only one company (Clay) was visible in the Ideal Companies section of the captured page. If more were expected, expand the section and re-copy — additional companies may be missing.

For reference only — do not source these specific profiles (page labels this "Ideal Candidates — DO NOT CONTACT"). Rhea Sanger — LinkedIn URL not captured in the page HTML (LinkedIn link was present as a button without a visible URL).

• None present on the role page.