Sophos is hiring an AIO (AI Optimization) Strategist to own how Sophos shows up and gets cited across AI search and answer engines. This is a new role and the first dedicated hire of a planned AIO/GEO function inside Sophos Growth Marketing.
This is not an SEO role with AI bolted on. We are looking for someone whose center of gravity is AI and large language models — how they retrieve, rank, summarize, and cite — and have a strong technical SEO foundation as the toolbox underneath that expertise.
What You Will Do
Strategy and program design: Define Sophos's AIO operating model — what we measure, how we earn citations, where we invest, and how AIO interlocks with SEO, content, PR, analyst relations, and product marketing. Build the roadmap and the vision; you will be expected to have an opinion on what we should and should not do.
Visibility and citation measurement: Stand up the visibility tracking system — the prompts, platforms, metrics, and reporting cadence that tell Sophos and its leadership how we are showing up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews, and emerging surfaces. Establish baselines, define targets, and report progress quarterly.
Content engineering for AI surfaces: Partner with Content, Product Marketing, and Web to engineer Sophos content (sophos.com pages, comparison content, customer stories, X-Ops research, blog content) so it is retrievable, extractable, and citable by LLMs.
Earned media and citation seeding: Work with PR, Analyst Relations, Social Media, and Customer Marketing to build a coordinated citation-seeding program.
Competitive AI visibility intelligence: Run continuous monitoring against our competitors across the AI surfaces. Identify where Sophos is being outperformed, where we are being misrepresented, and where the structural opportunities are. Bring back insights, not just data.
Cross-functional partnership: AIO does not work as a silo. You will partner across Strategic GTM, Growth Marketing, Regional Marketing, and Sophos Senior Management Team to drive strategy. You will not manage these teams, but you will need to influence them and earn their trust.
Education and thought leadership: Make AIO legible to the rest of Sophos. Run brown-bags, build internal playbooks, and represent Sophos externally (at industry events, on partner content, in analyst briefings) as the company's AIO voice.
Responsible AI judgment. You can tell the difference between AI tactics that earn citations honestly and tactics that game the system at the cost of accuracy or trust. You will not ship work that misrepresents Sophos, manipulates third-party platforms, or compromises the integrity of the information AI engines surface to buyers.
You will build and run Sophos's AIO program end-to-end. Specifically:
What You Will Bring
Proven hands-on, AI-first experience in GEO, AEO, LLMO, AI search strategy, prompt engineering, RAG content architecture, or applied AI in a marketing/search context.
Practical understanding of LLM behavior, including RAG, embeddings, context limits, citations, hallucinations, and the distinctions between training, fine-tuning, and grounding.
Strong technical SEO foundation, including structured data (JSON‑LD), crawlability and indexability, site architecture, Core Web Vitals, internal linking, log analysis, robots.txt/sitemaps, and Search Console.
Experience with AI citation tracking tools (e.g., Profound, Peec AI, Goodie, Otterly, Athena HQ, BrightEdge AI) or a comparable custom solution.
Hands-on prompt engineering experience across major LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot), using LLMs as research, analysis, and content‑engineering tools.
Strong analytical skills, including GA4, Search Console, KPI design, and separating visibility signals from pipeline impact (advanced spreadsheet skills required; SQL a plus).
B2B experience, ideally in B2B SaaS, technology, or cybersecurity, with familiarity with complex, multi‑stakeholder buying journeys.
Independent judgment and a defensible point of view in an emerging, noisy discipline.
Experience in cybersecurity or highly technical buyer markets.
Familiarity with channel, MSP, or MSSP go‑to‑market models.
Experience building a new function or program from scratch.
Proven cross‑functional influence without direct authority.
Public thought leadership in AI search, GEO, AEO, or LLMO (writing, talks, podcasts, OSS, audits, or prompt libraries).
Experience with enterprise, headless, or composable CMS platforms.
Working knowledge of agent-based AI workflows and AI agent content consumption.
Required Qualifications
Preferred Qualifications
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