Head of Retention

Polymarket International; New York (NY); Remote; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary & equity

Unlimited PTO

Health, Vision, & Dental coverage

401k match

MacBook Pro setup

Job summary

Polymarket International is seeking a senior leader to architect and scale our retention organization. You will own lifecycle, CRM operations, analytics, and incentives, driving LTV growth and cohesion across Marketing, Growth, Product, and Brand.

The role requires building a playbook from the ground up, hiring managers, and setting a data-driven roadmap in a regulated, event-driven product environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in retention, lifecycle, or CRM; min 5 years leading teams.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale a retention org from early-stage to full function.
• Own active-trader retention metrics (30/90/180 days) and LTV growth.
• Set retention budget and defend spend with incrementality data.
• Align cross-functional teams (Markets, Growth, Product, Brand) on a unified plan.
• Negotiate roadmap commitments with Engineering and Data for tooling and data infra.
• Own messaging rules and channel priority to protect trader experience.
• Work with Legal/Compliance to set guardrails for promotions and communications.

Skills

Retention leadership

CRM

Lifecycle management

Analytics

Incentives

Budget management

Stakeholder management

Tools

Braze

Customer.io

Amplitude

Job description

About Polymarket

Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market platform. We enable individuals to express views on real-world events by trading on outcomes across politics, economics, sports, culture, and current affairs. Built as a peer-to-peer marketplace with no centralized "house," Polymarket aggregates diverse opinions into transparent, market-based probabilities that reflect collective expectations about the future.

We're growing fast, both in terms of volume ($21B traded in 2025) and adoption as an alternative news source. Our ambition is to become a ubiquitous beacon of truth in global media and we need your help adding fuel to the fire.

About the Role

Polymarket is the world's largest prediction market, and retention is one of the most important unsolved problems in the business. Traders come in for elections, crypto moves, and playoff runs, then go quiet. The gap between a one-time depositor and an active, long-term trader is where this role lives. You will build and lead the team that closes it.

The retention org today is early. You will design the structure, make the hiring calls, and build the operating model from the ground up, including lifecycle, CRM operations, retention analytics, and incentives. You will manage through managers, own the incentive P&L with Finance, and be the voice of the retained trader in executive forums. This is not a role for someone who wants to inherit a playbook. The playbook does not exist yet.

This hire matters because retention is now a company-level priority, not a marketing function. Active-trader retention and LTV are going into the company scorecard. The person in this role will sit in leadership reviews, shape product roadmaps, and make the call on where incentive dollars go. If you have built a retention org at a high-churn consumer business, know how to run incrementality tests, and want to work on a product that is genuinely hard to retain users on, this is the job.

What You’ll Do

• Build the retention organization from an early-stage team into a full function, including lifecycle, CRM operations, analytics, and incentives, and make the calls on when to hire, what to build in-house, and what to bring in from partners.

• Own active-trader retention at 30, 90, and 180 days and LTV growth as company-level KPIs, and report cohort performance, churn signals, and incentive ROI directly to the CEO and exec team.

• Set and defend the retention incentive budget with Finance, using incrementality data to make the hard calls on when spend is and is not worth it.

• Align Markets, Growth, Product, and Brand around a single coordinated plan for major event moments, including elections, playoffs, and crypto events, so acquisition and retention move together.

• Negotiate roadmap commitments from Engineering and Data for the triggers, tooling, and data infrastructure the retention team needs to operate, including Braze, Customer.io, and Amplitude.

• Own messaging rules across the company, including frequency caps and channel priority, to resolve competing demands for user attention and protect the trader experience.

• Work with Legal and Compliance as a peer to set retention guardrails covering CFTC rules, state eligibility, and contact permissions, so the team can move fast inside clear limits.

What We’re Looking For

• 10 or more years in retention, lifecycle, or CRM, with at least 5 years leading teams and direct experience managing managers.

• A track record of building or scaling a retention org at a high-churn consumer business, in sports betting, fintech, streaming, or a comparable category.

• Experience owning an incentive or retention budget with full ROI accountability, including presenting incrementality results to Finance and executive leadership.

• Strong analytical judgment: you can challenge a model, design or read an incrementality test, and explain the results clearly to people who are not specialists.

• Experience presenting to and influencing a C-suite on retention strategy, not just reporting metrics.

• Experience leading in a regulated industry, with working knowledge of compliance constraints on user communications and promotions.

• Genuine interest in markets, sports, politics, or crypto, because the product is event-driven and the team needs to care about what traders care about.

• (Plus) Direct background in sports betting or prediction markets, with familiarity with how bettors churn and what actually brings them back.

• (Plus) Experience operating in a CFTC-regulated or similarly regulated environment.

Benefits

• Competitive salary & equity

• Unlimited PTO

• Full Health, Vision, & Dental coverage

• 401k match

• Hardware setup: new MacBook Pro, big display, & accessories