Forward Deployed Engineer (Marketing)

OpenGov is the leader in AI and ERP solutions for local and state governments in the U.S. More than 2,000 cities, counties, state agencies, school districts, and special districts rely on the OpenGov Public Service Platform to operate efficiently, adapt to change, and strengthen the public trust. Category-leading products include enterprise asset management, procurement and contract management, accounting and budgeting, billing and revenue management, permitting and licensing, and transparency and open data. These solutions come together in the OpenGov ERP, allowing public sector organizations to focus on priorities and deliver maximum ROI with every dollar and decision in sync. Learn about OpenGov’s mission to power more effective and accountable government and the vision of high-performance government for every community at OpenGov.com.

Job Summary

OpenGov is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to serve as a dedicated practitioner within the Applied AI team, focused on Marketing use cases — with an emphasis on Marketing Operations, Demand Generation, and Product Marketing activation. This role sits at the intersection of messy workflows, marketing execution, and applied AI, and exists to systematically redesign how OpenGov drives growth in an AI-native world.

This is a technical role applied in a traditionally non-technical space. You bring a sharp problem-solving mind, comfort with modern AI tools, and the instinct to decompose a complex, manual workflow into its components — and then design something fundamentally better. You need the ability to think from first principles, build trust with domain experts before designing for them, and own the full lifecycle from problem discovery to solution adoption.

You will work closely with the “marketing intelligence layer”: the market and competitive signals, campaign performance data, and product-specific positioning that Product Marketing and GTM Strategy maintain. Your job is to turn that intelligence into AI-native workflows and tools that marketers actually use, starting with a growth marketing cockpit where a marketer can launch an end-to-end campaign in one sitting, instead of stitching it together by hand across disparate systems.

This role operates within the Applied AI team's technical ecosystem. You will partner closely with a dedicated analytics/ops counterpart on the marketing side, partner with AI and data engineers on complex builds, and work directly with the Marketing org for domain guidance and go-to-market context. You will also serve as the primary AI capability advisor for marketing leadership.

Given the revenue-centric focus of pipeline, campaign, and prospecting work, this role requires a genuine interest in influencing core marketing KPI's (such as stage conversion rate, MQL creation, campaign messaging success, etc.). This means not owning their definition or reporting, but applying the necessary consideration and ROI frameworks to make sure what gets built is actually moving those numbers.

You will have access to data, ownership, and core responsibilities at a level comparable to senior marketing leadership, and are expected to exercise that with corresponding discretion.

Core Job Responsibilities

• Own the AI-native activation/workflow layer for Marketing: Design, build, and continuously improve the tools and automations (chiefly the growth marketing cockpit) that let growth marketers move from insight to a launched campaign in one sitting.

• Map and redesign workflows with an AI-native lens: go deep with Marketing teams to understand current-state processes — campaign management, lead scoring and routing, MQL handoff — identify where AI creates leverage versus risk, and translate findings into prioritized action plans that account for effort, impact, and data sensitivity.

• Build and deploy AI-powered tools and automations: this includes self-serve campaign creation and scheduling, lead scoring/routing automation, content and enablement generation, and messaging support for SDR sequences triggered off marketing/GTM strategy-defined signals, while operating within OpenGov's AI governance framework.

• Close the campaign performance feedback loop: Partner with the team that owns marketing metrics and reporting (GTM Strategy) to shrink the multi-day, manual process of figuring out why a campaign under- or over-performed into a fast, AI-native loop the demand gen team can act on the same day.

• Act as the connective tissue across marketing and other functions: Surface shared infrastructure opportunities to prevent duplicated builds with existing Applied AI efforts. This role is meant to create economies of scale, not n+1 point solutions.

• Partner with AI platform, systems, and/or data engineers when required: clearly define requirements, translate business needs into actionable technical specs, and own outcomes on the business side — build first, then delegate backend complexity (data modeling, integrations, infrastructure) to platform engineering.

• Serve as the primary AI capability advisor for Marketing: help team leaders understand what is possible with AI today, evaluate build vs. buy tradeoffs, identify where AI should not be applied due to compliance or brand-risk constraints, and set realistic expectations on scope and timeline.

• Drive adoption and change management for tools you build: shipping is not the finish line. You own ensuring that tools and workflows are understood, used, and refined based on real feedback from the people who depend on them.

• Maintain a living roadmap of AI initiatives across Marketing: track ideas, in-flight projects, and delivered solutions; report on impact (e.g., pipeline contribution, lead conversion, campaign efficiency); and continuously reprioritize based on business need and resource availability.

• Communicate progress, priorities, and blockers clearly across stakeholders: written updates, structured check-ins with Marketing leadership, Operations, and Applied AI leadership, and crisp escalation when decisions require broader alignment.

  
  

Required Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Marketing Analytics, Data Analytics, Business, or a related field.

• 4–7 years of experience in technical product management, marketing operations, data science, solutions architecture, or a closely adjacent function. We need someone who has been hands-on, on the ground, building and improving things — not advising from a distance.

• Demonstrated experience using AI tools in a professional context — not just familiarity. You have been actively using tools like Claude, Cursor, or Codex, as well as agentic orchestration systems like n8n, make.com, or Airia, to meaningfully improve how you or your team works, and you can speak concretely about what you've built or changed as a result.

• Past experience/exposure to GTM and Marketing at a SaaS company.

• Exceptional problem-solving and first-principles thinking: you can look at a messy, manual process, pull it apart into its components, and design a fundamentally better solution — not just automate what exists today. You approach unfamiliar domains as an asset, not a liability.

• Strong user research and discovery skills: you build trust with domain experts before designing for them, surface the root problem underneath the surface problem, and validate solutions with the people who will actually use them.

• Ability to bridge technical and business stakeholders: you can explain a complex AI workflow to a marketing stakeholder, articulate data access tradeoffs to a legal/compliance stakeholder, and translate business requirements into engineering specs — all in the same week or even day.

• Comfort working in a code-first approach to traditionally no-code enterprise MarTech or orchestration platforms (Marketo, Salesforce, Outreach, or similar). Familiarity with how enterprise data flows across systems is a plus.

• Strong analytical skills: comfortable with data in spreadsheets, dashboards, or basic BI tools (Tableau, Looker, or similar); able to extract insight from data and frame it clearly for both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Self-starter with high initiative: you see opportunities, propose solutions, and drive them forward without waiting to be told. This role will involve significant ambiguity, and the right person will find that energizing rather than paralyzing.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication: you write clearly, you do not create information silos, and you know how to tailor your message to the audience in front of you.

  
  

Nice to Have

• Prior experience in marketing operations, demand generation, growth marketing, product marketing, or MarTech systems/operations.

• Familiarity with AI governance concepts: prompt design, data access controls, audit trails, and responsible AI principles in sensitive-data environments.

• Experience building or deploying workflow automations or internal tools without engineering support.

• Familiarity with Snowflake, Looker, or similar data platforms at a data analysis level (not data engineering).

• Experience in organizational design, change management, or workflow transformation initiatives.

• Experience working in a fast-moving, high-growth SaaS environment where the org is actively evolving and priorities shift quickly.

• Experience working at the intersection of Marketing and Sales, or Marketing and RevOps — roles that required navigating cross-functional data ownership and system permissions.

• Exposure to marketing compliance frameworks: CAN-SPAM, TCPA, GDPR/CCPA, or email deliverability standards.

• Prior exposure to public sector or B2G marketing, or other environments with elevated data handling standards.

Compensation:

Chicago, IL: $165,000 - $184,000

On target ranges above include base plus a portion of variable compensation that is earned based on company and individual performance.

The final compensation will be determined by a number of factors such as qualifications, expertise, and the candidate’s geographical location.

Why OpenGov?

A Mission That Matters.

At OpenGov, public service is personal. We are passionate about our mission to power more effective and accountable government. Government that operates efficiently, adapts to change, and strengthens public trust.  Some people say this is boring.  We think it’s the core of our democracy.

Opportunity to Innovate

The next great wave of innovation is unfolding with AI, and it will impact everything—from the way we work to the way governments interact with their residents. Join a trusted team with the passion, technology, and expertise to drive innovation and bring AI to local government. We’ve touched 2,000 communities so far, and we’re just getting started.

A Team of Passionate, Driven People

This isn’t your typical 9-to-5 job; we operate in a fast-paced, results-driven environment where impact matters more than simply clocking in and out. Our global team of 800+ employees is united in our commitment to challenge the status quo. OpenGov is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dubuque, Dallas, and Pune.

A Place to Make Your Mark

We pride ourselves on our performance-based culture, where every employee is encouraged to jump in head-first and take action to help us improve. If you have a great idea, we want to hear it. Excellent performance is recognized and rewarded, and we love to promote from within.

Benefits That Work for You

Enjoy an award-winning workplace with the benefits to match, including:

• Comprehensive healthcare options for individuals and families

• Flexible vacation policy and paid company holidays

• 401(k) with company match

• Paid parental leave, wellness stipends, and HSA contributions

• Professional development and growth opportunities

• A collaborative office environment with weekly catered lunches.