Brand Paid Media Manager

Cursor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Cursor is seeking a Brand Paid Media Manager to build awareness and shape perception at scale. You’ll lead top-of-funnel media across television, podcasts, out-of-home, streaming audio and video, and other high-impact brand placements, partnering with creative and brand teams to resonate with technical and business audiences.

This role blends strategy with hands-on execution: you’ll plan, negotiate, and manage media investments, develop measurement approaches that tie brand activity to

Qualifications

• Experience planning and buying brand media across channels (TV, podcasts, out-of-home, streaming, etc.)
• Track record of managing meaningful media budgets and disciplined investment decisions
• Strong knowledge of media planning fundamentals (reach, frequency, audience, market, media mix)
• Experience working with media partners, publishers, networks, or agencies

Responsibilities

• Devise and execute a top-of-funnel paid media strategy across multiple channels.
• Own media planning, budgeting, forecasting, and allocation for brand campaigns.
• Identify markets, audiences, programs, and partners with the greatest impact.
• Lead media buying negotiations and contract terms.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate strategy into briefs and plans.

Job description

Our mission is to automate coding. The first step in our journey is to build the best tool for professional programmers, using a combination of inventive research, design, and engineering. Our organization is very flat, and our team is small and talent dense. We particularly like people who are truth-seeking, passionate, and creative. We enjoy spirited debate, crazy ideas, and shipping code.

About the role

We’re looking for a Brand Paid Media Manager to build awareness, shape perception, and introduce our brand to new audiences at scale. You’ll lead top-of-funnel media across channels such as television, podcasts, out-of-home, streaming audio and video, and other high-impact brand placements.

This role blends strategic thinking with hands-on execution. You’ll determine where and how we show up, negotiate and manage media investments, and partner with creative and brand teams to develop campaigns that resonate with technical and business audiences. You’ll also build a rigorous measurement approach that connects brand activity to awareness, consideration, demand, and long-term growth.

The ideal candidate has strong instincts for audience, culture, and creative, paired with the analytical discipline to evaluate performance and make thoughtful investment decisions.

What you’ll do

• Develop and execute a top-of-funnel paid media strategy across television, podcasts, out-of-home, streaming, audio, video, sponsorships, and emerging channels

• Own media planning, budgeting, forecasting, and allocation across brand campaigns

• Identify the markets, audiences, programs, creators, and cultural moments where our brand can have the greatest impact

• Manage relationships with media agencies, networks, publishers, podcast partners, and other vendors

• Lead media buying and negotiations, securing effective placements, pricing, added-value opportunities, and contract terms

• Partner closely with brand, creative, content, communications, and product marketing teams to develop memorable campaign concepts

• Translate campaign strategy into clear creative briefs, channel plans, audience recommendations, and production requirements

• Ensure creative is tailored to each medium while maintaining a consistent brand narrative

• Build testing plans across markets, audiences, messages, formats, frequency, and media mix

• Establish measurement frameworks for brand awareness, consideration, reach, frequency, share of voice, branded search, direct traffic, and downstream demand

• Use brand-lift studies, geographic testing, incrementality analysis, and other methods to evaluate campaign impact

• Monitor campaigns, surface insights, and adjust investment based on performance, audience response, and business priorities

• Communicate campaign plans, results, and recommendations clearly to cross-functional partners and company leadership

• Stay current on shifts in media consumption, advertising technology, measurement, and emerging brand opportunities

You may be a fit if you have:

• Experience planning and buying brand media across channels such as television, podcasts, out-of-home, streaming audio, or connected TV

• A track record of managing meaningful media budgets and making disciplined investment decisions

• Strong knowledge of media planning fundamentals, including reach, frequency, audience composition, market selection, and media mix

• Experience working directly with media partners, publishers, networks, or agencies

• Confidence negotiating placements, pricing, contracts, and added-value opportunities

• A strong understanding of brand measurement and the challenges of evaluating top-of-funnel marketing

• Experience with brand-lift studies, incrementality testing, media mix modeling, geographic experiments, or similar approaches

• Excellent creative judgment and the ability to assess whether an idea will translate effectively across different channels

• An analytical mindset and comfort working with campaign data, spreadsheets, dashboards, and performance models

• The ability to turn complex results into clear insights and recommendations

• Strong project-management skills and experience coordinating campaigns with many internal and external stakeholders

• Comfort operating with a high degree of ownership in a fast-moving environment

• Experience marketing B2B, technology, or developer-focused products is helpful, but not required

• Curiosity about how media, culture, and audience behavior are changing—and a willingness to test unconventional opportunities

• Willingness to go above and beyond this isn’t a strict 9-5 role, and while we respect work-life balance, the right person is energized by the occasional late-night project or weekend ping if it means a big opportunity for the business.