On 27 September, monday.com posted a job for a Senior Pricing Strategy Manager.
On 28 September, Asana posted a job for a Pricing Strategy Director.
One day apart. Two rivals, both hiring someone whose whole job is what they charge.
They didn't need a press release. The job post said it for them.
I built Kvasano to read this kind of thing. So I went through every job post we hold for monday.com, Asana, ClickUp and the earplug brand Loop. Five clues. All public. Most people scroll right past them.
Two honest things first.
For monday.com and Asana we see the first 50 postings LinkedIn shows us. Not the whole careers page.
And listings are not roles. Loop posts most jobs in both Antwerp and Amsterdam. On 11 October: 30 listings, 16 roles. Count roles, or you'll scare yourself.
Now. The clues.
1. A title that names a decision
That's the pricing pair above. Look, a pricing hire is not a price change. But it is a person paid to make one.
We first read both pricing pages on 12 October, so there's nothing to compare with yet. If I sold against either of them, I'd be watching that page.
2. A title you haven't seen before
10 of monday.com's 50 postings say "Forward Deployed". Engineers and consultants in six cities, from Denver to Singapore. All posted since 23 September.
A forward deployed engineer sits with the customer and makes the product work inside their company.
Nobody does that for a five-person team. My read: monday.com wants bigger customers, and is staffing the hard part first.
Loop has its own version. On 31 July it posted a freelance Embedded Software Engineer. Then on 2 October, a Senior Audio DSP Engineer. On 7 October, a Senior Firmware Program Manager. No "Freelance" in either title.
Firmware. At an earplug company.
I don't know what it's for. But it went from a freelance posting to a program manager in ten weeks. Somebody at Loop is staffing it.
3. The word "Freelance"
Of Loop's 16 roles on 11 October, 7 say Freelance or Contract. A YouTube growth strategist, a softgoods designer, a supply planner.
A freelancer is a bet you can cancel.
So when a rival hires freelance for a channel, I read it as a test. Loop's YouTube Growth Strategist went up on 23 September, freelance, in three cities. If that title comes back without "Freelance", the test probably worked.
Which brings me to the dates. And that's where it got weird.
4. The date on the post
On 12 October, ClickUp had five listings for a Senior Database Reliability Engineer. Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Bulgaria, Hungary.
Dated 23 to 25 June. Still up at least 109 days later.
Either they can't fill it, or they forgot it's there. Can't fill means a hard role and a team waiting. Forgot means it isn't news.
And the dates are real. Loop's Customer Operations Intern got a new date every time it was reposted: 16 July, 8 August, 29 August. So an old date means nobody touched it.
5. Where they put the chair
Between 22 September and 9 October, all three software rivals posted sales jobs for DACH. That's Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
- Asana: a Corporate Account Executive on 22 September and a Head of Enterprise Sales on 8 October. Both in Munich.
- monday.com: a Regional VP of Sales, DACH and CEE, on 9 October. Munich.
- ClickUp: a Growth Account Executive for DACH, on 9 October. In Dublin.
Same market. Different seat. A head of sales in Munich can have lunch with the customer. An account executive in Dublin can't.
Same market, two different bets on how close you need to be to win it.
And then there's Paris. 7 of monday.com's 50 postings are there: two in sales, pre-sales, implementation, two forward deployed people, customer success.
That's not a hire. That's a team.
So what do you do with it?
Open your closest rival's careers page. Read the dates, the cities, the word "Freelance", and any title you haven't seen there before. Fifteen minutes.
The old tricks still work too. Count the sellers against the engineers: on 12 October, 15 of ClickUp's 49 listings were frontend engineers alone. And read the tools their job ads name.
Nobody writes a job post for their competitors, which is exactly why it's worth reading.
If you'd rather see everything that's public about one rival, measured next to you, that's what I built Kvasano for. The first benchmark is free. One competitor, measured against you. No card. No call. Start here.
P.S. Pick the rival you lose the most deals to. That's the one whose job posts you want to read first. Your free benchmark is here.
Pick one competitor. See what we find.
Your first benchmark is free. One domain, measured against you, no card and no call.