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Category Lead

Whatnot

Whatnot

Operations
San Francisco, CA, USA · Los Angeles, CA, USA · New York, NY, USA
USD 160k-210k / year + Equity
Posted on Nov 12, 2025

Location

New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Hybrid

Department

Categories & ExpansionCategory Management

Compensation

  • $160K – $210K

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.

🚀 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. We’re re-defining e-commerce by blending community, shopping, and entertainment into a community just for you. As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values. With hubs in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, and Poland, we’re building the future of online marketplaces –together.

From fashion, beauty, and electronics to collectibles like trading cards, comic books, and even live plants, our live auctions have something for everyone.

And we’re just getting started! As one of the fastest growing marketplaces, we’re looking for bold, forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs 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 AM, Sales, Marketing and other cross-functional teams to achieve it.

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 our San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York City hub.

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 over 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 prioritize key focus areas for your team.

Drive outsized growth:

  • Identify category unlocks, and work cross-functionally with product, marketing, operations, 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 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.

👋 You

  • 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

  • 7+ years of experience working in a fast-paced, client-facing role in high-output environments, such as: Strategy Consulting, Private Equity, or partnerships at a fast-paced tech company

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Proficiency in SQL.

  • Passion for creator communities and live e-commerce.

💰Compensation

For Full-Time (Salary) US-based applicants: $160,000/year to $210,000/year + benefits + equity.

The salary range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills, and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary, not benefits (more details below) or equity.

🎁 Benefits

  • Generous Holiday and Time off Policy

  • Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision

  • Work From Home Support

    • Home office setup allowance

    • Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet

  • Care benefits

    • Monthly allowance for wellness

    • Annual allowance towards Childcare

    • Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses

  • 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

    • All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).

  • Parental Leave

    • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

💛 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.

Compensation Range: $160K - $210K