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What’s up everyone, today we kick off part 1 of a 3 part series we’re calling The Martech Job Hunt Survival Guide. Part 1 is: How to Find Hidden Job Opportunities.

Summary: This episode is a guide for martech and marketing ops professionals navigating one of the toughest job markets in years. Phil and Darrell cover what to build before you ever need a job: network, dream company lists, freelance income, AI side projects. Then it shifts to the tactical mechanics of finding roles most candidates never see. From the Ashby Google search hack to VC job boards, staffing firm pipelines, and stealth startup cold outreach, the counterintuitive moves are the most useful ones here.

In this Episode…

• Why Getting Laid Off Is Usually a Business Decision
• Networking Before You Need Anyone’s Help
• Building Your Dream Company List Before the Job Search Starts
• Tactics For Finding a Job in 2026
  1. The Ashby Search Hack and Why Referrals Beat Job Applications
  2. Hidden Job Boards and Staffing Firms Most Candidates Ignore
  3. Finding Martech Jobs at Stealth Startups Using VC Funding Alerts
  4. Why Fast-Growing Martech Agencies Are an Underrated Hiring Path

Why Getting Laid Off Is Usually a Business Decision

Sadly, being laid off these days isn’t rare. Amazon had another round of 16,000 cuts, Block cut 4,000 workers, Salesforce let go og nearly 1,000 employees, EBay laid off 800 roles, Flipkart laid off 500, Workday cut 400 jobs… Atlassian also recently finished a round of mass layoffs. Good lord.

Last year, Darrell knew what was happening across the industry. He was prepared. And then it happened anyway, and prepared turned out not to mean what he thought it meant.

What comes next is something anyone who’s been through it will recognize. Identity goes first. The role you’ve spent years building, the thing that answers “so what do you do?” at every party, just disappears overnight. Then the financial math kicks in. Then the replay loop. If only you’d been more visible. If only you’d taken a different project. If only you’d made that 1 relationship work.

Darrell has come out of it with a realization that being laid off is almost always a business decision, full stop, regardless of your performance, your visibility, or who liked you. The evidence arrived a few weeks later, when he found out that top performers across his entire organization had been cut, including his direct manager, someone who was by any measure visible, impactful, and doing everything right. When your boss gets laid off, there was nothing you could have done.

“If you’ve never been laid off before, you can’t help but think it’s your fault. The big feeling is: if only I had done something different, if only I was more visible, if only I had taken a different project. And that is just 100% not true. It is all business decisions.”

Many of us have been there. Maybe you’ve been let go at some point, hopefully with some severance — which often gives you a window that tricks you. You have a little runway, so you tell yourself you’ll take a month to decompress before getting back into it.

That’s the trap. The best advice Darrell got came from friends who had already navigated their own layoffs: don’t take a break. His instinct was to take a month off, maybe 2, then ease back in. The people who’d lived it told him something he didn’t want to hear: it’s going to take exactly that long just to get into pipelines. And while you’re recovering, everyone else with the same resume and the same experience is making the same choice. You’re competing against thousands of people who were also good at their jobs and also got laid off. Darrell ran full steam ahead instead. He ended up with 2 offers.

How quickly you start matters more than how long you prepared. The people who figure that out in the first 48 hours have a real structural advantage over everyone else grieving on their couch.

Key takeaway: Start your job search the week you’re laid off. Reach out to friends who’ve been through it, get your materials ready, and get into pipelines immediately. Everyone else is planning to take a few weeks off first, and that gap is your only real competitive edge right now.

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Building Career Security Before You Need It

Most people don’t think about their next job until they lose the current one. Full-time employment gives you a title and a salary, but career security is something you build separately, independent of any employer. You have benefits, recurring income, and a professional identity anchored to a single org chart, and the company can end any of that without notice.

Here’s how Phil thinks about it: an active network you can activate, something generating income outside your primary job, and a professional reputation that doesn’t disappear when the org chart does. The companies that describe themselves as families are also the ones making headcount decisions when the numbers stop working. Your actual family is at home.

This leads to 3 strategies Phil argues everyone in martech should be pursuing whether or not they’re actively looking.

1. Nurture your network.
2. Follow your dream companies.
3. Do something outside your 9 to 5, whether freelancing, a side project, or anything with even a small amount of income attached.

These aren’t strategies for when you’re in trouble. They’re strategies for ensuring you never are. Roles in martech and marketing ops are among the first cut when companies reduce overhead. Operators who treat their current employment as permanent are more exposed than they realize.

“I’ve always been a fan of this stoic concept called the pre-mortem. In good times, imagine the worst-case scenario and work out what you’d do. I had always thought: what would happen if I lost my job? I knew I had a big network. So I wasn’t as worried. But for many people, networking isn’t something you do regularly.”

Key takeaway: Treat career security as a separate goal from job security. Map 3 building blocks: an active network, at least 1 income source outside your employer, and a professional identity that exists independent of your title. Start with whichever is weakest right now.

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Networking Before You Need Anyone’s Help

The most common networking advice is to reach out when you’re looking for work. Darrell’s approach is the opposite: build and maintain relationships constantly, so the network already exists before you ever need it.

“I’m always asking for help. If you’re figuring out how to integrate a tool, if you’re figuring out why your database is so messed up, how are you not reaching out to people in a similar job and saying, hey, what are you doing? Because that, to me, is just a waste of time not to do that.”

His entry point is the Stoic concept of the pre-mortem. In good times, imagine the worst case scenario and work out what you’d do. For Darrell, that meant regularly asking himself what would happen if he lost his job tomorrow. Because he’d been building across martech and marketing ops communities for years before his layoff, the answer was already in place. He acknowledges most people don’t approach it this way.

What his version of ongoing networking looks like is less grand than the concept sounds. He asks for help constantly. If he’s debugging a database, evaluating an advertising tool, or figuring out how to integrate a new platform, he messages someone in the community who’s already solved it. That’s networking that doubles as getting better at your job. He does it almost weekly on Slack or LinkedIn. The other piece is scheduled connection: after a good first conversation, suggest a recurring monthly call. Jacqueline Friedman did exactly that with Darrell. If you can’t make it, cancel. Regular touch points in a remote world have to be created on purpose.

Phil adds the infrastructure side: LinkedIn notification bells for people he wants to stay close to, a Notion CRM with contact lists, and a weekly 20-minute calendar block for follow-up. A touchpoint doesn’t need to be a 30-minute call. A quick comment on someone’s post, a DM after they share something interesting, a note to someone you haven’t spoken with in 2 weeks. Those interactions compound. When you’re actually searching, the people who’ve heard from you recently respond. The ones you’ve only contacted during previous job searches don’t.

Both Phil and Darrell agree on 1 thing about reaching out to people with a large platform: do your homework first. “Hey, do you have 5 minutes?” gets ignored. “I read your article on marketing attribution last week and have a specific question about data normalization” gets a response. The reciprocity principle cuts both ways: the more specific and genuine the outreach, the more likely you get real time back.

Key takeaway: Set a weekly 20-minute calendar block for network maintenance. Scroll your LinkedIn DMs and find anyone you haven’t spoken to in 2 weeks, then send a short genuine message. In communities like MO Pros or Email Geeks Slack, turn on keyword notifications for your specialty so you’re showing up with actual help, not just presence.

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Building Your Dream Company List Before the Job Search Starts

About 10 years ago, before switching jobs, Phil sat down and mapped out what his ideal employer actually looked like. Remote-first culture, global footprint, interesting tech stack, a brand that was loud about how it worked. He built a list of 120-plus companies he would have taken a call from immediately. Most were martech vendors or companies that were explicitly public about being remote and asynchronous.

Once the list existed, he used LinkedIn to follow hiring managers and marketing leaders at each company, with notification bells set so he’d see when they posted. He didn’t apply to jobs. He was just present, watching, paying attention. That behavior is how he landed his role at Close, a fully remote CRM company: he was following their head of marketing, Danny, and saw the marketing automation posting the moment it went live. The list had done its job before he even needed it.

“I used to do this for MarTech in general and marketing operations: just have a daily Google alert about what’s happening. That’s how you stay in the know around acquisitions and all the latest news. Today you could easily do a ChatGPT daily task to search certain companies for any new open roles. You can really stay on top of that stuff.”

Darrell adds the automation layer. A daily Google alert for each target company keeps you current on funding news, acquisitions, and major changes. Or run a ChatGPT automated task that checks target company career pages for new open roles. Once set up, this runs without effort. The people who build this infrastructure before they need a job are the ones who spot the right opening within hours of it going live, rather than seeing it 2 weeks later on Indeed.

Key takeaway: Build your dream company list now. Identify 20 to 50 companies you’d genuinely want to work at, find senior marketing and ops leaders at each, and set LinkedIn notification bells for their activity. Add a Google alert or ChatGPT automated task for each company to surface funding news and job postings as they happen, not days later.

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Why AI Side Projects Give You a Real Edge in Job Interviews

Every job description in martech and marketing ops right now includes an AI component. Darrell went through it firsthand during his search: every interview question circled back to some version of “what have you built with AI, and what were the results?” His honest read on this question is worth sitting with. Most real AI use cases at actual companies are internal productivity improvements. Faster reports, better summaries, cleaner workflows. Very few are generating measurable new revenue. So when an interviewer asks for your AI results, they’re often asking a question that doesn’t have a clean answer anywhere in the industry.

“Each interview question was some form of: AI is really big for us right now, we are looking to implement it, we want someone to come in and help lead these AI projects. What have you done and what kind of results have you gotten from it? Most of the AI use cases that actually do stuff are internal, just making internal processes faster. A lot of companies are not generating more revenue with AI. It’s very rare.”

The expectation exists anyway, and not having something concrete to point to costs you. Side projects and freelancing are how you close that gap. Phil puts it plainly: doing something outside your primary job gives you 3 things at once:

1. You go from 100% income to some income if you lose your role, rather than nothing.
2. You stay sharp across tools your current employer isn’t using.
3. And you have something to show.

Darrell’s brother, a product manager, took this to its ceiling during his own job search. He went into every interview with a working app built specifically for that company, in their branding, with a real use case mapped to their business. He came away with multiple offers. The tools to do this in martech are accessible right now: Zapier, Voiceflow, and current AI builders make it possible to ship a working proof of concept in a day. Talking about what you’ve done with AI is table stakes. Walking in with a working prototype changes the conversation entirely.

Freelance collectives like Emmie Co give you a structured entry point without finding clients yourself. A Slack channel with active project leads, coordinated work, and regular opportunities. The email geeks and marketing ops communities have similar channels. If you’re in a role that doesn’t touch AI in any substantive way, side projects are how you build the portfolio that gets you into interviews where AI experience is required.

Key takeaway: Build 1 AI-powered prototype relevant to your martech specialty using Zapier, Voiceflow, or a similar no-code AI builder. Bring it to your next interview or post it on LinkedIn. Showing something working, even at a rough stage, answers the AI question more convincingly than any verbal description. If you need project access, join a freelance collective like Emmie Co or a community Slack with an active jobs channel.

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The 2026 Martech Job Market Reality Check

The conventional wisdom over the past 2 years was that the layoff wave was temporary. The economy would stabilize, tech companies would resume hiring, and things would normalize. That hasn’t happened. Big tech is still announcing cuts. Darrell describes the current state of the martech and marketing ops job market as one of the worst he’s seen, drawing from ongoing conversations with peers across major organizations.

3 things are making this market harder than what people experienced in past downturns.

Logo Bias

The first is logo bias. When Google, Meta, or Amazon lays off thousands of people and those candidates flood the market, companies doing the hiring can’t help but weight recognizable-brand resumes on the first pass. A marketing ops candidate from a Google subsidiary is going to outplace a strong candidate from a less-known company on that initial screen. That’s just the reality right now.

Remote Work

The second is remote work concentration. After the pandemic, large numbers of experienced operators left high-cost cities in exchange for remote flexibility. When companies later pushed return to office, many refused and became remote-first candidates competing for the same small pool of fully remote roles.

Darrell’s data point is worth paying attention to: among the cohort laid off at his last company, the ones who found jobs fastest were willing to consider onsite roles in their local area. Accepting a 2-day-a-week onsite arrangement removes roughly 75% of the competition. Phil is equally pragmatic: if you’re out of work, onsite goes back into the consideration set. Take the role that generates income, then keep looking.

“My cohort of people that got laid off at my last company, the people that got jobs the quickest were the ones that were actually willing to look for onsite roles in their local area. Because if you’re going for an onsite job you’re relatively close to, you cut out 75% of the competition.”

Ego and Titles

The third factor Darrell raises is the one people least want to hear: ego. A lot of operators are holding out for senior director or VP roles with the same scope they had before. When those roles aren’t there, it feels like a step backward. Darrell’s friend offered a reframe that actually landed: a step down right now is a chance to get paid while learning AI and sharpening your skills in an environment where the stakes are lower.

Most companies don’t know what they’re doing with AI yet. Getting into 1 at almost any level, with the skills and mindset to lead that conversation, is a strong position to be in 12 months from now.

Key takeaway: Expand your job search criteria to include hybrid and onsite roles within reasonable commuting distance. List companies in your area you’d consider, then check their career pages directly. A fully remote-only search means competing with the entire country. Onsite or hybrid in your city cuts that field dramatically, and most “onsite” roles today mean 2 days a week.

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Tactics For Finding a Job in 2026

The Ashby Search Hack and Why Referrals Beat Job Applications

Job boards have a coverage problem. LinkedIn and Indeed capture most of the market, but far from all of it. A large share of tech and martech companies run their job listings through Ashby, a hiring platform that puts all openings on a consistent subdomain format. A specific Google search unlocks that entire layer at once, steal it below.

site:jobs.ashbyhq.com 
("technical marketing" OR "marketing operations" OR martech OR "email" OR "marketing analytics" OR "lifecycle marketing" OR "revenue operations" OR revops OR CRM OR "marketing automation" OR "GTM systems" OR "growth operations" OR "demand" OR "customer marketing" OR "campaign operations" OR "go-to-market systems") 
("Remote" OR "Remote -") 
-"on-site" -onsite -hybrid

A parallel search on LinkedIn works the same way: site:linkedin.com/posts combined with hiring intent phrases and your specialty terms surfaces posts from hiring managers announcing open roles before they’ve been processed through any ATS, sometimes days before they appear anywhere else.

1. Finding the posting is step 1. Most candidates immediately apply and run their CV through ChatGPT to match the job description. Phil’s ordering is different.
2. Before applying, find a warm connection. Pull up the target company on LinkedIn, filter for 2nd-degree connections, and reach out to 1 of them.
3. Explain you saw the posting and ask if they’d be willing to introduce you to the hiring manager.
4. Most people hesitate because it feels like asking a favor. Many companies pay referral bonuses of 4 to 5K. People drop referrals for people they barely know when the financial incentive is sitting there in their HR system. You’re doing them a favor.

“I reached out to a CMO that I knew. The CMO wasn’t hiring, but he said, I’m part of a CMO group, I’m gonna drop your resume in there. Someone I didn’t know from the CMO group reached out and said, hey, my colleague recommended you. Let’s talk. And the rest is history.”

Darrell’s own metrics during his search were unconventional: he measured outreach volume, not application count. At least 10 LinkedIn and email messages per day, working through his mental rolodex and sending direct, professional notes. The approach that landed him his current role was even more indirect. He reached out to a CMO in his network who wasn’t hiring. That CMO mentioned him in a CMO peer group. Someone in that group who didn’t know Darrell at all reached out because a colleague had vouched for him. That’s the actual pipeline most roles move through. The job board tells you the opening exists. The network gets you the interview.

Key takeaway: Run this Google search weekly: site:jobs.ashbyhq.com plus your specialty keywords. When you find a role worth pursuing, search LinkedIn for 2nd-degree connections at that company before applying. Message at least 1 asking for an intro. Set your daily job search KPI as 10 outreach messages sent, not 10 applications submitted. The ratio of outcomes is not comparable.

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Hidden Job Boards and Staffing Firms Most Candidates Ignore

Applying on LinkedIn and Indeed means competing with everyone who applied on LinkedIn and Indeed. There’s a layer of the martech job market that most candidates never check, and it consistently has less competition.

“Having worked at a large staffing company, I can tell you: they hire roles for Google, Amazon, Dell, and a lot of times those aren’t listed anywhere else. Take a look at the large staffing firms. They have their own job boards. The competition is lower. And if they appreciate your work, those contract roles turn into full-time roles.”

The marketingops.com community job board, curated by Mike Rizzo, posts roles from companies that know exactly what marketing ops talent looks like and are specifically trying to hire it. These are different from generic marketing postings. Wellfound, formerly Angellist, is another option for startup-focused roles. Meterwork costs about $7 per week and crawls company career pages directly, surfacing roles before they aggregate onto the major boards.

VC job boards are even less trafficked. Sequoia, a16z, and other major firms maintain boards for their portfolio companies, including early-stage startups that haven’t built a recruiting operation yet. Canadian VC Inovia has an active board worth checking. Companies posting here often haven’t saturated their applicant funnel, which means the path from application to conversation is shorter.

Darrell adds a category most candidates ignore entirely: large staffing firms. Having worked at a major staffing company, he saw firsthand how many contractor roles at recognizable brands like Google, Amazon, and Dell are filled through staffing firms and never posted publicly. Real roles, real pay, and companies regularly convert strong contractors to full-time employees. The job boards run by major staffing firms are a separate search path from everything else, and a productive one. Stop treating LinkedIn and Indeed as the whole market. They’re a fraction of it and it’s where you’ll face the most competition.

Key takeaway: Add 3 non-LinkedIn job sources to your weekly search routine: the marketingops.com job board, the VC portfolio job board for at least 2 firms active in your space, and the job board for 1 large staffing firm in your region. Check each weekly. These collectively update with far less competition than the major platforms.

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Finding Martech Jobs at Stealth Startups Using VC Funding Alerts

Some of the best martech and marketing ops roles exist before they’re ever posted. Stealth-mode startups are actively building teams while keeping the company private. Series A and B companies that just announced funding are already in active conversations about headcount. These opportunities never show up on a job board because the company hasn’t gotten there yet.

Phil’s method starts with VC funding announcements. A Google alert for martech and SaaS funding news means a notification every time a press release goes out. When a startup announces a $10 million Series A, they’ve been planning headcount for months. The marketing and operations roles they’ll need exist in some form before the job description is written. That’s the window. Reference the announcement, name your relevant experience in 1 sentence, and give the founder or VP an easy reason to respond. You’re not applying to a nonexistent job; you’re making it easy for someone who’s already thinking about the hire to have a name in mind.

“I do that all the time, and to be honest, I mainly do that versus even apply. You have to get rid of that cringe factor, the feeling that reaching out means you’re not great in your career. That’s the feeling that’s stopping you.”

On LinkedIn itself, stealth companies often post open roles tagged as “stealth company” or “stealth startup.” They lack a brand to advertise but still need to recruit. Filtering job searches for stealth company postings is a quick way to surface roles with almost no brand recognition and, as a result, far fewer applicants. Even a series-funded stealth startup with 3 open roles will receive a fraction of the applications a recognizable brand gets for 1 role.

Key takeaway: Set a Google alert for “martech startup funding” and “marketing ops startup funding.” When a funding announcement hits, find the VP of Marketing or Head of Marketing Ops on LinkedIn within 48 hours and send a specific, brief cold message referencing the round. Mention your relevant background in 1 sentence. Most candidates wait for the job posting. This approach gets you into the conversation months earlier.

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Why Fast-Growing Martech Agencies Are an Underrated Hiring Path

Agencies don’t post every open role. When a consultancy lands a new client or wins a contract requiring a specific platform specialist, they often need someone within weeks and have no time for a full recruiting cycle. The people who get those roles are already visible to the principals before the need arises.

“You can’t really lose there because you’re going to get introduced to new clients, you’re no doubt going to develop new skills, and you can be seen as a consultant in the type of work that you do.”

Phil’s approach is to treat agency leads as their own networking category. Following them on LinkedIn, commenting on their posts, making your expertise in a specific tool visible through what you share. When that agency lands a client using a platform you specialize in, the most recent person to demonstrate expertise in that platform is the obvious call. This is a job market that runs on visibility and timing, and you can position yourself for it without applying to anything.

Darrell sees agencies as a genuine career development path rather than a compromise. You get exposure to new clients, new stacks, and new problem sets at a pace that’s hard to replicate inside 1 company. The scope of work is broad, the skills compound quickly, and your network expands with every engagement. And the commitment level is flexible: subcontracting and part-time arrangements are common. Starting as a 20-hours-a-week contractor is a real option right now, especially if the full-time market isn’t moving for you.

Key takeaway: Identify 5 martech agencies or consultancies working in your specialty and find the principals or department heads on LinkedIn. Follow them, set notification bells, and comment substantively on their posts over the next 30 days. When they announce a new client win or service expansion, send a brief direct message naming your expertise and expressing interest in a contract or project-based engagement. Agencies fill roles before they’re posted; show up before the need goes public.

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Episode Recap

The central argument of this episode is a reframe: job security and career security are different things, and most martech operators have conflated them. Job security is the feeling that your current employer will keep you. Career security is the set of assets you own independent of any employer: your network, your reputation, your alternative income sources. Phil and Darrell’s case is that the second 1 is the only 1 worth building, and the time to build it is before you ever need it.

The tactical thread running through every chapter is the same: get ahead of the timeline. Start your search the week you’re laid off, before the emotional pull to take a break wins. Build your dream company list before you need it. Set up VC funding alerts before a role exists. Reach out to the CMO before the job is posted. The operators who find roles quickly in a bad market aren’t the ones who respond faster. They’re the ones who were already in motion.

The 2026 martech job market is harder than most people expected it to be, and Darrell says it clearly: this is 1 of the worst he’s seen. Big tech layoffs have created a permanently elevated baseline of strong candidates. Remote work concentration has compressed competition for fully remote roles to a degree that makes selective flexibility (onsite, hybrid, lateral moves) a real tactical advantage. And AI has become a credential hurdle that catches people who haven’t been building anything outside their day job.

The episode leaves 1 thread unresolved, and Phil names it directly: Darrell landed 2 offers, picked 1, and says he picked the wrong 1. How to evaluate offers, ask the right questions in late-stage interviews, and avoid landing somewhere that turns into another layoff story. That’s Part 3.

Listen to the full episode for the complete conversation, including the specific Ashby and LinkedIn search queries, Darrell’s outreach template, and the list of hidden job boards worth bookmarking.

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Intro music by Wowa via Unminus
Cover art created with Midjourney (check out how)

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