Director of Deliverability

About the role

• The Director of Deliverability is a senior leader responsible for defining and executing MessageGears’ enterprise deliverability strategy for large-scale B2C senders. Reporting to the VP, Client Success, this role ensures customer messages consistently reach the inbox by shaping deliverability best practices, guiding technical and strategic initiatives, and overseeing inbox placement, reputation management, and compliance for the platform.
• This role manages the Deliverability team, including Deliverability Engineers, and is accountable for advancing operational maturity, developing standardized frameworks, and partnering across the organization to improve customer outcomes and influence product strategy.

What you'll do

• Define and lead the enterprise deliverability strategy, ensuring success for customers with complex, large-volume B2C programs.
• Manage, mentor, and grow the Deliverability team, setting clear expectations, developing career paths, and ensuring consistent execution across onboarding, troubleshooting, and performance monitoring.
• Oversee escalated deliverability situations, providing advanced technical and strategic guidance that complements the work of Deliverability Engineers.
• Develop standardized tooling, processes, dashboards, and reporting frameworks that improve how we measure, monitor, and forecast inbox placement and customer sending performance.
• Partner closely with Customer Success, App Support, Sales Engineering, and Product/Engineering to align deliverability initiatives with product capabilities and customer needs.
• Advise enterprise customers on authentication, list hygiene, volume patterns, segmentation, compliance, and long-term program health, ensuring guidance is rooted in both best practices and industry evolution.
• Maintain strong relationships with mailbox providers, anti-spam organizations, and industry groups, serving as MessageGears’ senior representative for escalations, policy updates, and ecosystem collaboration.
• Lead change-management efforts related to industry shifts (e.g., anti-spam regulations, authentication standards, ISP rule changes), ensuring customers and internal teams are prepared.
• Guide the prioritization and development of new deliverability tools and features, providing Product and Engineering with expert requirements and ongoing feedback.
• Review platform-wide sending patterns and reputation indicators, identifying system-level risks and driving cross-functional initiatives to mitigate them.
• Create internal and external deliverability content, including playbooks, documentation, training modules, and best-practice guides.
• Ensure operational excellence, including ticket hygiene, SLA adherence, and consistent prioritization across the team.
• Model and reinforce data integrity best practices, ensuring all work is performed with the highest level of caution and compliance.
• Perform all duties in alignment with MessageGears’ policies, procedures, and customer-first values.

Qualifications

Knowledge and Abilities Required

• Expert-level understanding of enterprise deliverability dynamics, including:
• • Mailbox provider rules and filtering logic
  • IP/domain reputation mechanics
  • Blocklisting, remediation processes, and ISP feedback loops
  • Authentication frameworks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI)
  • Bulk sending infrastructure and mail server configuration
• Strong technical depth, including familiarity with SQL, data warehousing concepts, and the architecture of high-volume message delivery systems (aligned with Engineer-level expectations).
• Ability to interpret complex deliverability data and present clear, actionable recommendations to executives, technical stakeholders, and customers.
• Exceptional leadership skills with experience managing and growing a technical team.
• Strong customer presence: capable of delivering guidance to senior stakeholders at large B2C brands and navigating high-stakes or escalated deliverability situations.
• Effective cross-functional collaborator who can influence priorities and drive alignment across Customer Success, Product, Engineering, and App Support.
• Proven ability to operate strategically while supporting tactical execution when needed.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Self-motivated, resourceful, and comfortable leading through ambiguity and change.

Education and Experience Desired

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Marketing Technology, or related field—or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of deliverability or messaging-infrastructure experience, including direct responsibility for high-volume enterprise B2C programs.
• 3+ years leading a deliverability or adjacent technical team (e.g., email infrastructure, messaging reliability, or marketing technology operations).
• Experience working with enterprise software, data-driven platforms, and/or large-scale SaaS environments.
• Strong preference for experience interacting with mailbox providers or industry deliverability organizations.