Digital Production Director

Worst Kept Secret; Tysons (VA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) matching

Job summary

Worst Kept Secret is seeking a Director of Digital Production to lead our digital production practice across web builds, creative tech projects, and ongoing support. You will guide senior engagements, manage a team of digital producers, and partner with the VP of Innovation and Technology to shape delivery standards and capacity planning.

You will own complex multi-workstream deliveries, mentor producers, and drive process improvements, tooling adoption, and client alignment to ensure

Qualifications

• 8+ years producing website and digital platform work end to end.
• Experience managing other producers with accountability for output and development.
• Ability to run a portfolio with multiple engagements, budgets, and teams.
• Fluency across the full digital lifecycle: discovery to support.
• Credibility with technical and creative practitioners to challenge estimates.

Responsibilities

• Own delivery on the agency’s most complex digital engagements including multi-workstream web builds, ongoing platform and integration work, and long-running support relationships.
• Lead the project team across disciplines including strategy, UX/UI, content, development, analytics, media, and vendors, setting the operating schedule, establishing roles and responsibilities, and coordinating between disciplines.
• Direct the production process of a build: how work is scheduled, when review gates occur, who owns what, and what "done" means at each stage.
• Serve as the senior production voice on engagements, guiding clients through tradeoffs between scope, budget, timeline, and technical direction.
• Step into escalations anywhere in the department’s portfolio: recovering at-risk projects, resetting expectations, and unblocking work the team can’t unblock on its own.

Skills

Project leadership

Team leadership

Portfolio management

Client management

AI tooling

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

MBA preferred

Tools

AI tools

Job description

The Director of Digital Production is a core member of Worst Kept Secret’s Digital Team and leads our digital production practice supporting web builds, creative technology projects, and ongoing support. The Director carries a senior book of project work while managing the broader team of digital producers. The role reports to the VP of Innovation and Technology and sits at the center of how digital work is scoped, staffed, and delivered.

This is a working leadership role. The Director is one of our strongest producers: the person we put on the most complex or highest-stakes engagements while also being accountable for the capacity, consistency, and growth of the production team. They set the standard for how we produce digital properties and they raise the level of the people around them.

Responsibilities

Project and client leadership

• Own delivery on the agency’s most complex digital engagements including multi-workstream web builds, ongoing platform and integration work, and long-running support relationships.
• Lead the project team across disciplines including strategy, UX/UI, content, development, analytics, media, and vendors, setting the operating schedule, establishing roles and responsibilities, and coordinating between disciplines.
• Direct the production process of a build: how work is scheduled, when review gates occur, who owns what, and what "done" means at each stage.
• Serve as the senior production voice on engagements, guiding clients through tradeoffs between scope, budget, timeline, and technical direction.
• Step into escalations anywhere in the department’s portfolio: recovering at-risk projects, resetting expectations, and unblocking work the team can’t unblock on its own.

Team leadership

• Manage the team of digital producers providing direction, prioritization, and coaching.
• Mentor producers deliberately: hand them harder work, coach them through it, and maintain a clear view of where each is strong and where they need to grow.
• Draft performance reviews and hiring recommendations for the production team, for review and approval by the VP of Innovation and Technology.
• Model the behaviors we expect from the team: clear communication, coordination across departments, early escalation, honest estimates, and reliable follow-through.

Department operations

• Draft resourcing and capacity plans for the production team, surfacing conflicts, overallocation, and gaps early enough to act on them.
• Own and improve how we produce including documentation standards, QA and launch checklists, intake, and handoffs between account, creative, development, and analytics.
• Track the health of the portfolio: budget burn, schedule risk, utilization, and accounts that depend too heavily on individual resources.
• Partner with the engineering and creative leads on cross-discipline planning and staffing.

Growth and agency contribution

• Contribute to estimates, scopes of work, and proposals, and participate in new business pitches as needed.
• Bring a production perspective into agency-level conversations about process, tooling, and capability.
• Evaluate and advocate for AI-assisted workflows where they improve quality, speed, or consistency of digital production.

Required

• 8+ years producing website and digital platform work end to end, including large, multi-workstream builds.
• Direct experience managing other producers, with real accountability for their output and development.
• Demonstrated ability to run a portfolio, not just a project, holding multiple engagements, budgets, and teams in view at once.
• Fluency across the full digital lifecycle: discovery, UX, design, content, development, QA, launch, analytics, and support.
• Credibility with technical and creative practitioners in order to challenge an estimate or question an approach and be taken seriously doing it.
• Strong client presence, including in direct conversations about scope, budget, and timeline.
• Sound judgment on resourcing and capacity, and the discipline to plan rather than react.
• Experience using AI tools in day-to-day work, and willingness to adopt new ones as the landscape evolves.

Preferred

• Agency experience, particularly in a department or practice leadership role.
• Experience with support, maintenance, hosting, or retainer programs at scale.
• Experience contributing to estimates, SOWs, proposals, or RFP responses.
• Working familiarity with accessibility, analytics, SEO, CRM integrations, marketing automation, or digital media.
• Hands-on ability in at least one production area: CMS, QA, analytics, SEO, or UX documentation.

Success in the role

A successful Director of Digital Production makes the department more capable not only by driving delivery of challenging work, but by developing producers who do the same. They make the call when the answer isn't obvious, put process around work that's drifting, and say plainly when something isn't working. Their success shows up both in their own projects and in how reliably the whole portfolio runs.