Life at Treasure Data: Andrea Escobar, on Making a Shift From Sales to Marketing Ops

Andrea Escobar is a marketing operations manager at Treasure Data. Based in San Diego, California, Escobar originally started as an SDR and moved into a marketing operations role a year later.

Here is her story.

Q: When did you start with Treasure Data, and what role are you in now?

Andrea: I started at Treasure Data in September 2019. I started in the SDR role, and I was in that role for a year. Then, in September 2020, I transitioned into marketing operations, and I’ve been in this role for a year and a half.

Q: Why did you decide to shift from an SDR role to the Marketing team?

Andrea: I built really strong relationships with the marketing team while working with them. When we were working in person, in the office, I was able to see how they worked, and that caught my attention. Also, working for a company that sells marketing technology software, in a role where I was conversing with people every day about how important a CDP is in their marketing technology stack, made me passionate about understanding consumer data. It made me want to continue my career there.

Q: How is your role as Marketing Operations Manager different from your role as an SDR?

Andrea: There are a lot of differences. I would say one of the biggest differences is the team aspect. As an SDR, you are part of a team, but you work independently toward a similar goal. In marketing, you’re more of an individual contributor, and you’re one piece of the puzzle in the team. So you can’t succeed without the rest of your team. The SDR role is much more individually driven, and success is based on your own efforts.

Q: Can you describe what your day-to-day looks like?

Andrea: That’s a good question. I think my day-to-day is a lot more technical than most people see. Being in operations, you do a lot of the backend work. People compare it to seeing under the hood when you’re working on a car. A lot of people think of a car and think about driving it and the aesthetics–but marketing ops is about making sure everything works. So a lot of it is working with tools and making sure that integrations are working and everyone’s getting what they need data-wise.

Q: How do you work with different parts of the marketing department in your role?

Andrea: I work closely with different parts of the marketing department. With the Web team, we work hand in hand on the digital side. With the Content team, when rolling out new content, making sure engagement is measured, and most heavily with the Campaigns team. All of the marketing campaigns come through us in order to reach the SDR team. It takes a village to make anything happen in marketing. And, in operations, we’re at the end of the funnel, as far as handoff and results go.

Q: Did you face any challenges when transitioning into this new marketing operations role? Did anything surprise you? What were some of the things you learned along the way?

Andrea: Moving into a technical role with none of that background was a huge leap skill-wise. There were a lot of surprises, a lot of things under the hood that you don’t get to see unless you’re in the midst of it.

I think the biggest thing was the mindset shift. In marketing ops, you’re responsible for understanding the why and how of how things work. With reporting, with operations, with any tool, you can’t simply learn how to use the tool or understand what a report is showing–it’s a lot of asking: “why does the tool work?” and “what does this data actually mean?”

Q: If you were to offer advice to someone who wanted to make a similar career transition, what advice would you give?

Andrea: Try to get super comfortable with the tools you have available to you, and try to expand your skillset beyond what you are required to know about how to use the tool. Understand why you’re seeing the data and ask questions about how that data is being fed to certain tools, and how it works in the grand scheme of the business from a marketing perspective.

Thinking from the stakeholder’s perspective is also critical: What’s important in order to make big decisions? What would a C-level executive want to know? And what information do I, as a person in the weeds, want to provide them to ensure they have a holistic view of the data?

Q: How does your team help you grow professionally?

Andrea: My team is everything. They have decades of experience. In marketing ops, it’s really how much you’ve seen, how many fires have you put out. It’s a lot of learning as you go. The industry is shifting so quickly, and there are so many new technologies, each one with expanding capabilities every single day. It’s a lot of trial and error and seeing what works because no marketing technology stack is the same. So, working with people who have all this experience on me is just invaluable.

Q: How would you describe Treasure Data’s culture?

Andrea: Something that I really love about Treasure Data is that it still keeps its startup culture. By that, I mean people embrace wearing a few different hats. No one here wants to be pigeonholed into their job description or specific skillset. And I think that’s kind of what helped me move along, the people being open and teaching you things that aren’t necessarily in your job description. I think that’s important to have if professional growth is a goal. Culturally, I think people are open and very friendly. That’s what has kept me here for two and a half years.

Personally, my experience has been amazing as far as doors being open and people being open. Treasure Data was perfect for me in my career journey because it has allowed for a lot of growth. Moving across teams and building those relationships, even virtually, has been great for my career. It’s an amazing environment.

If you want to learn more about working at Treasure Data, check out our careers page.