Lead, Retention Strategy

Coursera Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 137,275 - 173,500; Full time

Job summary

Coursera is seeking a Lead, Retention Strategy to drive cross-functional initiatives that reduce churn and maximize learner value across the combined Coursera/Udemy portfolio. You will own the retention strategy, roadmap, and operating cadence with teams spanning Product, Lifecycle, Monetization, Payments, Analytics, Data Science, and Support.

You will analyze customer journeys, size opportunities, and present executive-ready business cases and dashboards to shape scalable retention initiatives

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in retention strategy or related analytics fields.
• Experience driving strategy in a subscription/recurring revenue business, including retention, renewal, churn, engagement, pricing, or monetization.
• Strong analytical skills with using data to diagnose problems, size opportunities, and evaluate experiments.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive alignment on complex initiatives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting to senior leaders.
• Strong ownership and ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments.

Responsibilities

• Track retention metrics across key segments, geographies, and renewal cohorts to identify drivers of churn.
• Develop a data-driven retention strategy with partners across Research, Analytics, Data Science, and Support.
• Analyze onboarding, discovery, engagement, usage, cancellation, renewal, save, and winback journeys for opportunities.
• Prioritize initiatives with Product, Lifecycle, Monetization, and Payments to improve retention and reduce involuntary churn.
• Own the retention experimentation roadmap: sizing, prioritization, design, readouts, and scaling successful initiatives.
• Lead the cross-functional retention operating cadence and ensure alignment on priorities and progress.
• Develop scalable frameworks and decision tools to measure retention impact across the organization.
• Communicate performance and recommendations to Consumer leadership through dashboards and business cases.

Skills

Retention strategy

Growth

Monetization

Product strategy

Lifecycle marketing

Analytics

Management consulting

Business operations

Job description

Coursera and Udemy are now one company, creating one of the world's most comprehensive skills development platforms for the AI era. This strengthens our ability to accelerate AI-powered innovation and shape how the world discovers and builds skills at a pivotal moment of change. Read more about the combined company by visiting our blog .

Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. Coursera partners with leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations — including AI-powered personalized guide and features, like Role Play and Course Builder, and role-based solutions like Skills Tracks — enable instructors, partners, and companies to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, students, and citizens in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business, while learners globally turn to Coursera to master the skills they need to advance their careers. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp. Coursera recently combined with Udemy to create one of the world’s most comprehensive skills development platforms.

Why Join Us

At Coursera, we’re looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners ready to shape the future of education. You’ll help build global programs and tools that power online learning for millions turning bold ideas into real impact. People who thrive here are customer-first builders who move fast, simplify ruthlessly, and iterate relentlessly on the metrics that matter.

We’re a globally distributed team that comes together intentionally for collaboration, complex problem-solving, and key milestones — creating opportunities for teams to do their best work together. Our virtual hiring and onboarding experience makes it easy to join us and start making an impact from anywhere. If you’re ready to make a global impact, help scale unique products across Coursera + Udemy, and grow your career, apply below.

Job Overview

Within the Consumer organization, our work centers on helping learners discover, engage with, and realize value from the combined Udemy and Coursera portfolio. The Monetization team plays a critical role in shaping how customers evaluate, purchase, renew, and continue benefiting from our offerings, with a focus on improving learner value, retention, and long-term business outcomes.

We are seeking a Lead, Retention Strategy to drive the strategy, operating cadence, and cross-functional agenda for reducing voluntary and involuntary churn across our Consumer business.

In this role, you will be responsible for understanding why customers churn, identifying the highest-impact opportunities to improve retention, and building the business cases needed to prioritize initiatives across Product, Lifecycle, Monetization, Payments, Analytics, Data Science, Research, and Support. You will analyze customer behavior across key flows, geographies, channels, buyer segments, and subscription journeys to uncover opportunities that improve renewal rates, engagement, save outcomes, winback performance, and long-term customer value.

This role requires a combination of analytical rigor, strategic thinking, customer empathy, and cross-functional leadership. You will serve as a key thought partner to leaders across the Consumer organization and help ensure retention opportunities are clearly diagnosed, financially sized, prioritized, tested, and scaled.

Responsibilities

• Track Coursera + Udemy retention metrics across key customer segments, geographies, platforms, acquisition channels, buyer segments, subscription products, and renewal cohorts, identifying the key drivers of voluntary and involuntary churn throughout the customer lifecycle.
• Develop a data-driven retention strategy by partnering with Research, Analytics, Data Science, and Support to combine customer behavior, qualitative insights, and business performance data, translating findings into prioritized opportunities and business cases.
• Analyze key customer journeys—including onboarding, discovery, engagement, subscription usage, cancellation, renewal, save, and winback—to identify opportunities that improve learner value, renewal rates, engagement, and long-term customer value.
• Partner with Product, Lifecycle, Monetization, and Payments teams to prioritize and shape initiatives that improve retention, including engagement strategies, pricing and promotional approaches, save and winback programs, and payment recovery efforts that reduce involuntary churn.
• Own the retention experimentation roadmap, including opportunity sizing, prioritization, success metrics, test design, readouts, and recommendations for scaling successful initiatives.
• Lead the cross-functional retention operating cadence, aligning stakeholders on priorities, progress, risks, decisions, and execution while driving accountability across partner teams.
• Develop scalable frameworks, metrics, and decision tools that enable consistent evaluation, prioritization, and measurement of retention initiatives across the Consumer organization.
• Communicate retention performance, strategic recommendations, and business impact through executive-ready narratives, dashboards, business cases, and decision documents, serving as a trusted thought partner to Consumer leadership.

Basic Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in retention strategy, growth, monetization, product strategy, lifecycle marketing, analytics, management consulting, business operations, or a related analytical discipline.
• Experience driving strategy and decision-making in a subscription or recurring revenue business, with exposure to retention, renewal, churn, engagement, pricing, payments, or monetization.
• Strong analytical skills with experience using customer and business data to diagnose problems, size opportunities, evaluate experiments, and develop business cases.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive alignment across complex initiatives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting recommendations to senior leaders.
• Strong ownership, business judgment, and ability to operate independently in an ambiguous environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a consumer subscription, SaaS, marketplace, e-commerce, media, or education technology business.
• Experience leading initiatives focused on retention, renewal, churn reduction, lifecycle engagement, payment recovery, or customer lifetime value.
• Familiarity with experimentation, SQL or BI tools, and working closely with Analytics or Data Science teams.
• Experience developing executive-level business reviews, strategic recommendations, or operating dashboards.

Compensation

This role is available in the following US Pay Zones:

US Zone 3: $147,475 - $173,500

US Zone 4: $137,275 - $161,500

At Coursera, we offer competitive, zone-based pay aligned to your location, experience, and role level across four U.S. pay zones. Our total rewards package goes beyond salary, with comprehensive health and wellness benefits, bonus and RSU equity programs, and global perks designed to help you grow and thrive wherever you are.

• Zone 1 – San Francisco Bay Area only
• Zone 2 – New York City Metro and Seattle Metro
• Zone 3 – CA (outside of SF Bay Area), CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, MD, NY/NJ (outside of NYC Metro), OR, RI, TX, VA, WA (outside of Seattle Metro)
• Zone 4 – All other US locations not listed in Zones 1–3

The application deadline for this role is 20 August 2026

To protect against recruitment fraud, Coursera + Udemy recruiters only communicate via official coursera.org/udemy.com email addresses and never through personal accounts. We do not accept resumes via email or social media; please submit all applications directly through our careers page.

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The application deadline for this role is August 20, 2026