Marketing Lead

What is Spade?

Financial institutions process billions of transactions every day across cards, ACH, wires, and third party aggregators. But most of that data is difficult to use. Descriptions are inconsistent, merchant names don’t match, and categories vary by payment type.

Spade’s API takes these raw, messy transactions, and in <50 ms, returns clean, structured records linked to verified businesses in our proprietary database. Building on that foundation, our agent layer leverages this enriched data to automate insights and decision-making. Customers including Stripe, FIS, Bilt, Corpay, and Mercury use Spade to authorize more transactions, personalize experiences, power rewards programs, and more. We lead the market in merchant coverage, speed of enrichment, and data accuracy, enriching hundreds of billions of dollars in transaction volume every month.

Spade is a fast growing, Series A company backed by industry experts and top tier investors (including a16z, Flourish Ventures, Y-Combinator, and Gradient Ventures). We’re a lean and execution-oriented hybrid team, passionate about building exceptional products for our growing customer base. We care deeply about diversity of background, experience, and opinion. We value empathy, curiosity, and passion, and strive to create an environment where individuals have autonomy and the ability to take ownership over their work.

What will you be doing?

As Spade’s first marketer and founding marketing lead, you will own our brand presence and growth strategy across all channels. You’ll be responsible for building awareness in the fintech ecosystem, telling compelling customer stories, and driving demand through strategic marketing initiatives. You will: 

• Develop compelling content including customer stories, case studies, and white papers that showcase Spade’s value proposition and technical differentiation
• Build brand awareness through strategic campaigns, creative initiatives like holiday gifts, and consistent messaging across all channels
• Plan and execute industry events, conferences, and sponsorships to build relationships, generate leads, and establish Spade as a thought leader in fintech
• Manage marketing budget and contractor relationships, measuring ROI and optimizing spend across channels to maximize impact
• Lead press and media relations, including managing PR strategy, developing relationships with fintech journalists, and securing coverage in key industry publications
• Own website updates and SEO strategy to drive organic traffic, improve search rankings, and optimize conversion paths for target audiences

What experience, skills, and qualifications are necessary? 

• Must have: 
  • 7+ years of marketing experience, including as a generalist or in different types of marketing roles 
  • 3+ years of fintech experience with understanding of the payments, banking, and/or financial services landscape
  • Demonstrated success building and executing comprehensive marketing strategies
  • Experience owning a marketing budget and measuring impact of spend, with track record of ROI-driven decision making
  • Comfortability managing contractors and external agencies to execute marketing initiatives efficiently
  • Experience in a marketing function at an early stage, high growth company 
• Nice to have: 
  • 5+ years of fintech experience with deep industry connections (including PR contacts) and understanding of market dynamics
  • Experience leading marketing at a Series A or B startup, understanding the unique challenges of scaling in high-growth environments
  • Experience building and leading marketing teams
  • Spent more than $100k/year on marketing (not including headcount)
  • Managed or done PR with experience developing media strategies and managing press relationships
    

Why join Spade? 

• Be a cultural founder. As an early employee, you’ll play a meaningful role in defining and building our culture. 
• Get in on the ground floor. We’re a small but well-funded team that just raised a Series A – joining now comes with limited risk and unlimited upside. 
• Build the next generation of financial infrastructure. Our products will power the next wave of innovation in fintech, helping our customers deliver better, more transparent products and services to the consumer. 

Benefits include:

• Competitive compensation and equity package
• Full medical, dental, and vision benefits for US-based employees
• Life & short-term disability insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Early exercise program and extended post-termination exercise period
• 401K for retirement planning
• Hybrid team, with pet-friendly headquarters in NYC
• Paid parental leave
• Work from home stipend

Diversity & Inclusion at Spade:

Spade is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culture that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We believe that having people with different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives not only helps us build the best products for our customers, but also helps us be the best version of ourselves.

As part of our commitment to health and safety, Spade requires employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as permitted under applicable law.

Salary Range:

• At Spade, we view total compensation as consisting of salary + equity + benefits. We recruit motivated and high performing talent, and work to compensate people in line with the value they bring to our team. 
• We aim to pay fairly and competitively, and consider a number of factors in developing compensation offers. These factors include years and breadth of experience, interview performance, market dynamics, and internal equity. 
• The anticipated cash salary range for this role is $150,000 - $170,000. An equity grant will also be provided.