YOUR IMPACT AT UMH
Hi, Alex and Jeremy here from UMH.
8 years ago, we were absolutely frustrated with the status quo of data infrastructure in manufacturing. Companies paid millions per year for outdated software from the 90s. They still do today. There is much better technology out there, built on open source.
So we decided to do this better. We first founded a System Integrator. We realized most of the tasks in setting up and maintaining a data infrastructure can be standardized. Then we founded the currently VC-backed UMH. Built on open-source software and our software is open source itself.
Global manufacturers in Automotive, Food & Beverage, Consumer Goods & Luxury run UMH in production. Engineers ship real features multiple times a week. The Discord and GitHub community keeps growing faster than we can keep up with.
But we are limiting ourselves by not doing a better job telling people what they can achieve with UMH. Our best customer stories live in Slack threads. Product launches go out with a changelog and not much else. We need someone who fixes that. That's why we're hiring our first Product Marketing Manager. You report directly to the co-founder and CEO.
What we're actually building:
We build a data platform from and for manufacturing. It connects machines across all major industrial protocols. It models data in accordance with industry standards like ISA-95 and integrates it into systems where users can build business value-adding applications and automations on top.
The whole infrastructure is open source. Our community on Discord, GitHub, and Slack is where future enterprise customers first discover us. And yes, we care about how we present all of this to the market.
You'll love this if you want to:
- Own the narrative for an entire product category: Industrial Data Management is where cloud was 15 years ago. The incumbents are slow. The customers know it. You get to define how this category gets talked about.
- Turn a deep technical product into stories that actually resonate: Our platform does things that sound simple on a spec sheet. In practice, they are incredibly hard. Your job is to make an IT director or a plant manager understand why it matters for their factory. Without a 45-minute technical briefing.
- Shape what we build, not just how we talk about it: You'll sit in product planning. You'll hear customer calls firsthand. You'll work closely with our Value Engineering team and product engineers. Your market insights will change what we do.
- Work at the intersection of enterprise and open source: We sell to enterprises. Our go-to-market is deeply rooted in open source. The community on GitHub and Discord builds trust and awareness. That turns into enterprise conversations. You shape how we tell that story at every step of the customer journey.
- Build this from scratch: You own the function. You have direct access to the founders. If it works, you're building a team around it.
YOUR PROFILE
You might be a fit if you have:- 3-7 years in B2B product marketing. Ideally at an enterprise software company where you were close to the product, not just the brand.
- You've personally shaped positioning and messaging that changed how people talked about a product. Not just reviewed it. Built it.
- A genuine interest in how open-source software becomes enterprise software. You don't need to be an expert. But you should be curious about how community adoption turns into enterprise deals.
- Technical curiosity that goes beyond reading a product brief. You try competitors' products on your own. You build a meaningful opinion about what works and what doesn't. You can explain what a Unified Namespace is or why connecting dozens of industrial protocols through a single platform is hard. You don't need to write code. But you need to get the product well enough to have a real conversation about it.
- Experience being the first or one of the first marketing hires. You know how to prioritize when everything seems important. You're comfortable building the function before you have a team.
- Strong English and German writing and speaking. The application should be in English. German matters for DACH customer and team interactions.
Also a good sign:
- You've marketed an open-source software product or you understand how marketing open-source enterprise software is different from traditional proprietary products.
- Manufacturing, industrial IoT, or OT/IT is not a foreign concept to you.
- You've worked at a company with fewer than 50 people and enjoyed it.
- You go to meetups, follow industry discussions, or get excited about technology beyond your current job.
This probably isn't for you if:
- You want a marketing role where the strategy is already set and you're executing a playbook. We don't have a playbook yet. You're writing it.
- You need a content calendar handed to you, a brand guidelines PDF to follow, or a manager who reviews every draft before it goes out, this will feel too unstructured. If "product marketing" to you means "make the deck prettier," we need different things. If manufacturing as a space doesn't genuinely interest you, you'll run out of energy fast.
But honestly, we care more about how you think and write than whether you check every box. If your application makes us think "this person gets it," that matters more than a perfect resume.
WHAT WE OFFER?
- Salary: 65-90k EUR (depending on your experience) + option to earn VSOP (virtual shares). We'll explain the details in our first conversations.
- Role trajectory: You're the first dedicated product marketing hire. You're building the function. If it works, you're building the team. This is a future Head of Product Marketing role.
- Office: We work mostly from our office in central Cologne. This role requires absorbing product context, customer conversations, and the bits and pieces that only happen in person. Home office is possible from time to time for focused work. This is not a remote position. Our engineers can work more flexibly because async code review works differently than building a market narrative together.
- Reporting: You report directly to the co-founder and CEO.
- Learning curve: Expect steep growth. Industrial protocols. Factory operations. How open-source enterprise companies actually make money. You'll learn more in 6 months here than in 2 years at a bigger company.
- Virtual Company Shares: We're building a generational company, and those who join us on that multi-year, all-in journey should share in the upside. Through our VSOP program, you participate directly in the value you help create.
- Benefits: 30 days vacation, a thoughtfully designed office in central Cologne, free drinks & snacks, a healthy and ergonomic work environment and access to Urban Sports Club / EGYM Wellpass, Uber Eats & Uber Home when working late