Category Lead, Germany

## **🚀 Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!** Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops. As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our [values](https://www.whatnot.com/careers#principles) and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact. We're one of the [fastest growing marketplaces](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/business/dealbook/whatnot-livestream-shopping-fundraise.html) and were recently named the [#1 Best Startup Employer in America](https://www.forbes.com/lists/americas-best-startup-employers/) by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our [news](https://blog.teamwhatnot.com/) and [engineering blogs](https://medium.com/whatnot-engineering) and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce. ## **💻 Role** Join our team as a Category Lead and take charge of scaling a category on Whatnot. In this role, you will define the strategic vision of your category and work with Account Management, Sales, Marketing and other cross-functional teams to achieve it. **Define our strategy:** - Map the market, dive into the data, talk to sellers and buyers to build a perspective on how we should scale the category on Whatnot - Define our action plan for addressing key challenges and opportunities in the category **Lead our execution:** - Manage a team of dotted line reports in account management, sales and marketing to onboard and grow sellers, activate influencers and run community events. Develop and mentor your team members to take ownership of their key initiatives. - Source, execute, and manage the highest priority partnerships in the category - Own our data to define and monitor key success metrics in the category, using those insights to prioritise key focus areas for your team. **Drive outsized growth:** - Identify category unlocks, and work cross-functionally with product, marketing, operations, and engineering to bring to life solutions and initiatives that will step-change category growth - Work alongside executives to propose and execute tests that can give the insight we need to adapt to the evolving needs of the category. **Be the voice of your category:** - Be an advocate of our mission as you build relationships with top sellers and buyers, seeking to understand their perspectives and ensuring that our product meets their needs - Carry our culture by guiding your team to deeply understand the core components of the business and product so they can best pitch sellers and grow your community **We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of either our Berlin, Germany or London, UK hubs.** ## **👋 You** People who do well at Whatnot tend to be comfortable figuring things out as they go, biased toward action, and genuinely curious about what they're building. They care more about outcomes than credit and stay close to the product and the people using it. As our next Category Lead, you should have 5+ years of experience working in a fast-paced, client-facing role in high-output environments, such as: Strategy Consulting, Venture Capital, Private Equity, or partnerships at a fast-paced tech company, plus: - You have a passion for our mission at Whatnot - you live and breathe the needs of our communities and work relentlessly to improve their experiences on Whatnot - You operate as a player/coach and will get in the weeds to produce results in a highly ambiguous environment - You are scrappy, and no job is too small - Fluent German and English with a deep understanding of the German market - You are a world-class leader with experience managing and developing a team - You are deeply analytical and comfortable understanding and manipulating data to gain and take action on business insights ## **🙏 Nice to Have** - Experience with two-sided platforms and marketplace dynamics - Passion for creator communities and live e-commerce ## **🎁 Benefits** - Generous Holiday and Time off Policy - Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision - Work From Home Support - Care benefits - Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally - Monthly allowance to dogfood the app - Parental Leave ## **Please note: Whatnot will only contact you through official @whatnot.com email addresses. If you see an email impersonating a Whatnot recruiter, please disregard and report it as spam.** ## **💛 EOE** Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce. €150K – €200K • Offers Equity • Multiple Ranges The salary or hourly rate range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary or hourly rate will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills, and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary or hourly rate, not benefits or equity. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.