Principal Competitive Intelligence - Search - Product Marketing

Elastic; United States; Hybrid; USD 136,000 - 215,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Health coverage

Flexible locations

Vacation days

Donation matching

Volunteer hours

Parental leave

Job summary

Elastic is seeking a Principal Competitive Intelligence Manager to join its Product Marketing organization, focusing on Search. This role analyzes the competitive landscape and provides actionable insights to enhance go-to-market strategies.

You will collaborate with sales, marketing, engineering, and leadership to position Elastic against competitors in a dynamic market. You will build and run a competitive intelligence program, create battlecards and enablement materials, track competitive

Qualifications

• Understanding of the Search market, key players, technologies and trends.
• Proven success in roles such as sales engineering, technical marketing, or competitive analysis within the search industry.
• Strong technical and analytical skills to assess competitive solutions and propose effective responses.
• Experience translating technical features into compelling business value for diverse audiences.
• Ability to build relationships and work with teams across the company, including sales, marketing, engineering, and leadership.
• Excellent communication skills—verbal, written, and visual.
• Background in engineering, computer science, or equivalent experience is helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

• Build and implement an effective competitive intelligence program for Search, including in-depth analysis of competitors' products, services, pricing, packaging, marketing strategies and financial performance.
• Create clear, compelling, fact-based internal and external enablement materials – battlecards, bulletins, training, comparisons for blogs/websites – that tell the story behind Elastic product and technology differentiation, creating sales and solution engineering confidence.
• Track, analyze, and communicate competitive developments, providing timely responses to market changes and competitor actions.
• Develop and deliver compelling proof points and external blogs and web pages to communicate competitive differentiation.
• Collaborate on the Win/Loss program, participating in W/L interviews and analyzing data to advise sales strategies and product decisions.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the search market, including market trends, competitive dynamics and SWOT evaluations.
• Effectively collaborate with product marketing, product management, and sales to craft competitive positioning strategies for new products and features.
• Participate in industry events to monitor trends and advise on competitive shifts.

Skills

Search market

Competitive analysis

Technical marketing

Communication skills

Engineering background

Education

Engineering or CS background

Job description

Elastic, the Search AI Company, enables everyone to find the answers they need in real time, using all their data, at scale — unleashing the potential of businesses and people. The Elastic Search AI Platform, used by more than 50% of the Fortune 500, brings together the precision of search and the intelligence of AI to enable everyone to accelerate the results that matter. By taking advantage of all structured and unstructured data — securing and protecting private information more effectively — Elastic’s complete, cloud-based solutions for search, security, and observability help organizations deliver on the promise of AI.

What is The Role:

Elastic is seeking a Principal Competitive Intelligence Manager to join its Product Marketing organization, focusing on Search. This role is pivotal in analyzing the competitive landscape and providing actionable insights to enhance go-to-market strategies. The successful candidate will collaborate with various teams to position Elastic's offerings effectively against competitors, ensuring the organization remains competitive in a dynamic market. The ideal candidate brings a strong mix of technical, business and communication ability, particularly in the Search market. You have a deep understanding of Search solutions including the users and buyers of those products. You thrive in ambiguity, think critically, and can dive deep to deliver valuable insights. You excel at communicating across levels, from technical experts to senior executives, and are skilled at turning data into impactful messaging for different audiences.

What You Will Be Doing:

• Build and implement an effective competitive intelligence program for Search, including in-depth analysis of competitors' products, services, pricing, packaging, marketing strategies and financial performance.
• Create clear, compelling, fact-based internal and external enablement materials – battlecards, bulletins, training, comparisons for blogs/websites – that tell the story behind Elastic product and technology differentiation, creating sales and solution engineering confidence.
• Track, analyze, and communicate competitive developments, providing timely responses to market changes and competitor actions.
• Develop and deliver compelling proof points and external blogs and web pages to communicate competitive differentiation.
• Collaborate on the Win/Loss program, participating in W/L interviews and analyzing data to advise sales strategies and product decisions.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the search market, including market trends, competitive dynamics and SWOT evaluations.
• Effectively collaborate with product marketing, product management, and sales to craft competitive positioning strategies for new products and features.
• Participate in industry events to monitor trends and advise on competitive shifts.

What You Bring:

• Understanding of the Search market, key players, technologies and trends.
• Proven success in roles such as sales engineering, technical marketing, or competitive analysis, within the search industry.
• Strong technical and analytical skills to assess competitive solutions, features and strategies and propose effective responses.
• Experience translating technical features into compelling business value for diverse audiences.
• Ability to build relationships and work effectively with teams across the company, including sales, marketing, engineering, and leadership.
• Excellent communication skills—verbal, written, and visual—to share competitive insights and strategies effectively.
• Background in engineering, computer science, or equivalent experience is helpful but not required.

Additional Information - We Take Care of Our People:

As a distributed company, diversity drives our identity. Whether you’re looking to launch a new career or grow an existing one, Elastic is the type of company where you can balance great work with great life. Your age is only a number. It doesn’t matter if you’re just out of college or your children are; we need you for what you can do. We strive to have parity of benefits across regions, and while regulations differ from place to place, we believe taking care of our people is the right thing to do.

• Competitive pay based on the work you do here and not your previous salary
• Health coverage for you and your family in many locations
• Ability to craft your calendar with flexible locations and schedules for many roles
• Generous number of vacation days each year
• Increase your impact - We match up to $2000 (or local currency equivalent) for financial donations and service
• Up to 40 hours each year to use toward volunteer projects you love
• Embracing parenthood with a minimum of 16 weeks of parental leave

Security & Privacy Responsibilities:

Take ownership of protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of organizational data and systems by following applicable privacy and security policies, standards, and procedures. Ensure that all individual contributions follow Elastic’s Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF). Proactively participate in mandatory role-based training to ensure personal technical execution consistently aligns with the highest standards of data protection, data privacy, and system resilience.

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email [e-mail]. We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws and can view the following posters linked below:

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster

Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster

Please see here for our Privacy Statement.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary. This role does not have a variable compensation component.

The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is listed below. In select locations (including Seattle WA, Los Angeles CA, the San Francisco Bay Area CA, and the New York City Metro Area), an alternate range may apply as specified below.

These ranges represent the lowest to highest salary we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range, and the ranges may be modified in the future.

An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

Elastic believes that employees should have the opportunity to share in the value that we create together for our shareholders. Therefore, in addition to cash compensation, this role is currently eligible to participate in Elastic's stock program. Our total rewards package also includes a company-matched 401k with dollar-for-dollar matching up to 6% of eligible earnings, along with a range of other benefits offered with a holistic emphasis on employee well‑being.

The typical starting salary range for this role is:

$135,700—$214,700 USD

The typical starting salary range for this role in the select locations listed above is:

$163,100—$258,100 USD

Different people approach problems differently. We need that. Elastic is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by federal, state or local law, ordinance or regulation.

We welcome individuals with disabilities and strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all individuals. To request an accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email [e-mail] We will reply to your request within 24 business hours of submission.

Applicants have rights under Federal Employment Laws, view posters linked below:

Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Poster; Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Poster; and Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) Poster.

Please see here for our Privacy Statement.