At Shef, we’re rebuilding the food system from scratch, redefining who can participate in the food economy, and returning personal connection to the making, eating, and sharing of food.

Shef is an online marketplace for local, food safety certified cooks to connect with customers in their community and earn a meaningful income selling homemade dishes.

75% of shefs are women and 80% are people of color. Together, they represent nearly 100 countries around the world, from Algeria to Korea, to India and Venezuela. Shefs are aunties and abuelas, immigrants and refugees, stay-at-home parents and restaurant dreamers. They’re passionate local cooks in your community who are doing what they love most — sharing their food and culture with you.

Shef is also part of a growing movement to build a more inclusive food system for all. We are proud to support and champion advocacy efforts to expand home cooking laws across the country so that talented cooks everywhere can earn a meaningful income from their own kitchens.

Join us: https://jobs.lever.co/shef

About Shef

At Shef, we’re bringing humanity back to mealtime by connecting consumers with talented chefs in their community. By introducing the sharing economy to the dinner table, we create meaningful economic opportunities for chefs while making homemade meals more accessible and affordable. Shefs on the platform craft menus inspired by their passion and expertise, preparing meals in small batches and delivering them to your door—so you can enjoy the warmth of a homemade meal without the hassle.

We have raised over $100M from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, and M13, as well as founders and executives from Instacart, TaskRabbit, StubHub, AngelList, Lyft, Airbnb, and Yelp. We have a ton of exciting work ahead of us and are excited to have you join us!

About the Role

As Head of Marketing at Shef, you will own the strategy and execution across all marketing disciplines: customer acquisition, lifecycle, positioning, and brand. You will refine Shef’s brand positioning to differentiate in a crowded market and attract high-quality customers. You’ll build scalable, multi-channel marketing funnels, develop a lifecycle strategy that drives subscription adoption and retention, and partner with product & ops teams to accelerate activation and retention.

This is a player-coach role, ideal for a leader who thrives in both strategy and execution. You will report to the CEO, oversee 2 direct reports, and work cross-functionally with Product and Operations to scale Shef’s marketing efforts and drive sustainable revenue growth.

Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Development

• Collaborate closely with Product & Ops to drive growth—at Shef, we recognize that Growth is a team sport, and success requires strong alignment across teams.
• Lead and develop a high-performing marketing team, managing two direct reports while fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Own and optimize the marketing budget, setting financial KPIs, tracking spend efficiency, and reporting performance cross-functionally.
• Identify and onboard resources to scale marketing efforts.
• Partner with the CEO to set targets and ensure marketing is driving forward company objectives for sustainable revenue growth.

Positioning & Messaging

• Refine Shef’s positioning to balance differentiation and clarity in a crowded market.
• Ensure our marketing promises align with the real customer experience and resonate with our core audience of busy parents.
• Oversee an integrated marketing calendar that ties messaging across all channels and touchpoints in the funnel

Lifecycle & Retention Marketing

• Ensure the lifecycle strategy to convert leads into subscribers and retain customers is aligned with the overall growth strategy.
• Support the lifecycle marketing team in optimizing SMS, email, and in-app messaging to activate, engage, and retain users.
• Partner with the team to develop segmentation strategies that personalize communication and maximize LTV across both subscription and marketplace customers.

Performance Marketing & Acquisition

• Oversee and refine the multi-channel acquisition strategy (paid, organic, referral, partnerships) to ensure scalable and cost-effective growth.
• Work closely with the performance marketing team to balance prospecting and retargeting strategies, optimizing media mix and attribution models.
• Provide strategic oversight and budget ownership while supporting the team in optimizing campaigns across search & social.

Qualifications

• Experience leading marketing at a service-based subscription business. Bonus if you've worked in marketplaces, food, or shared economy platforms.
• Proven track record of acquisition, retention, and lifecycle marketing success in businesses with 7-30 day conversion windows.
• Deep understanding of full-funnel marketing and ability to partner closely with product teams to improve conversion.
• Strong data-driven mindset with experience developing attribution models and media mix strategies.
• Hands-on experience balancing brand and performance marketing.
• Ability to operate as a player-coach—leading strategy while also executing and iterating quickly.
• Experience overseeing $2-5M marketing budgets and scaling $10M+

We're building a two-sided marketplace and all the exciting challenges that go along with it. Here is our high-level tech stack:

React.js TypesScript Node.js Express.js GraphQL Apollo AWS ReactNative