Who are we?
UpGuard’s mission is to make life easier for security teams. We meticulously create robust solutions that enable our customers to identify, assess, and remediate cybersecurity risk across their attack surface, vendor ecosystem, workforce, and trust relationships. Our integrated cyber risk posture management platform combines comprehensive security ratings, instant risk assessments, templated security questionnaires, threat intelligence capabilities, and agentic AI to give organizations a holistic view of their risk surface.
The Marketing team at UpGuard includes multiple marketing and design functions, including Product Marketing, Demand Gen, Marketing Ops, Content Marketing, SEO, Community, Design, and Video. UpGuard’s vision is to become a leader in the markets we play in (Cyber VRM, Attack Surface Management) by providing a best-in-class SaaS platform for organizations to manage their third-party risk and external attack surface. Our purpose as a Marketing team is to facilitate this goal by growing UpGuard with a repeatable and scalable marketing engine and a leading brand.
Where does this role fit in?
This Manager, Content Writing role is a critical function within UpGuard's Marketing team, serving as the people leader and strategic content contributor for a team of South African-based Content Writers who are embedded within dedicated, cross-functional product squads.
You will work at the nexus of content strategy, narrative design, and execution. You will manage the output, development, and quality control for your team, while also being a hands-on content writer for one specific product squad. Your overall mission is to ensure that UpGuard's messaging is consistently world-class, technically accurate, and deeply compelling. You are responsible for transforming high-level product strategy into cohesive brand stories that drive B2B SaaS pipeline across a range of channels.
What will you do?
- People Management: Serve as the direct line manager for four South African-based Content Writers, providing coaching, mentorship, performance reviews, and career development guidance.
- Editorial Coaching & Storytelling: Go beyond grammar and syntax to coach writers on narrative structure, tone, and flow. You will teach your team how to find the "hook" in technical topics and weave storytelling elements into B2B assets to maximize reader engagement.
- Content Quality & Governance: Work with Content Specialist and Campaign Managers to provide editorial oversight for content produced by your team, ensuring high-quality output across all formats and channels.
- Hiring & Onboarding: Play a key role in the recruitment and onboarding of new content talent in the South African region as the team grows.
- Squad Content Execution: Act as the dedicated, hands-on Content Writer for an assigned product squad, owning the content strategy and production for that specific area.
- Strategic Storytelling: Move beyond feature lists to craft human-centric stories that resonate with CISOs and security professionals. You will identify the "hero’s journey" within customer challenges and position UpGuard as the essential guide to their success.
- Content Production: Produce a range of high-impact B2B SaaS content, including in-depth white papers, eBooks, blog posts, website copy, case studies, email sequences, video scripts, social copy and high-converting landing pages.
- Technical Content Development: Work directly with Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to translate complex cybersecurity concepts and UpGuard's product capabilities into clear, compelling, and benefit-driven narratives.
- SEO & Conversion: Implement best practices for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) in all produced content to drive organic traffic and maximize pipeline generation.
- Performance Analysis: Collaborate with the Analytics and PMM teams to interpret content performance data (e.g., traffic, time on page, conversion rates) and apply these insights to coach the writers to continuously optimize future content strategies.
What do we need from you?
- Content Leadership: 5+ years of experience in content writing/marketing, with at least 2+ years of direct people management experience leading a team of content professionals.
- Experience in a globally distributed organization, managing remote or partially remote teams.
- Hands-On Writing Excellence: Exceptional writing, editing, and storytelling skills, with a portfolio that demonstrates the ability to handle a range of content formats and tones.
- Project & Stakeholder Management: Proven excellence in managing multiple content projects, deadlines, and cross-functional stakeholders (PMMs, Design, Web, Paid Media, etc.).
What will give you an edge?
- Direct experience operating in a cross-functional marketing structure (e.g., agile, pod, or stream model).
- Prior experience marketing cybersecurity or complex B2B technology products/services to a global audience.
- B2B SaaS Expertise: Proven track record of creating high-performance content within a B2B SaaS environment that successfully drives lead generation and pipeline.
- SEO Proficiency: Strong knowledge of SEO principles and keyword research to optimize content for search engine performance.
- Technical/Cybersecurity Acumen: Ability to quickly grasp and translate complex technical concepts, preferably in the cybersecurity, risk management, or IT space, into accessible and persuasive marketing content.
What's in it for you?
- Monthly Lifestyle subsidy: use this for financial, physical and mental wellbeing (all regions)
- WFH set-up allowance: to ensure you have the right environment to work in, we will help you get set-up within your first 3 months at UpGuard (all regions)
- $1500 USD annual Learning & Development allowance: to support your career development all team members will be able to expense development opportunities against this allowance (all regions)
- Generous Annual Leave/PTO allowances: time to recharge your batteries (all regions)
- 18 weeks paid Parental Leave: irrespective of parenting role (all regions)
- Personal Leave allowance: this includes sick & carer’s leave (all regions)
- Fully remote working environment: whilst we have physical offices in Sydney & Hobart, we do not mandate compulsory attendance (all regions)
- Top spec hardware: all team members will be provided with top-spec laptops for their role (all regions)
- Personal device security & online privacy protection subsidy: UpGuard provides team members with a paid subscription to personal device security & online privacy protection platform (all regions)
- Generative AI subsidy: UpGuard provides paid subscriptions for all team members to access generative AI tools to support their work (all regions)
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UpGuard is a Certified Great Place to Work® in the US, Australia, UK and India, establishing its position as a leading global technology employer. 99% of team members agree that UpGuard is a great place to work, apply now to find out why!
As an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.
For applications to positions in the United States, please note, at this time we can only support hiring in the following US states: CA, MD, MA, IL, OR, WA, CO, TX, FL, PA, LA, MO, or DC.
Before starting work with us, you will need to undertake a national police history check and reference checks. Also please note that at this time, we cannot support candidates requiring visa sponsorship or relocation.
