Director of Media

Darkroom Studios, LLC; New York (NY); Remote; USD 128,000 - 173,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

Remote-First Culture

Health & Wellness

401(k) with company match

Parental Leave

Job summary

Darkroom Studios, LLC is seeking a senior paid media leader to own strategy and activation for a high-spend account with a dedicated, remote-first team. You will guide channel selection, budget architecture, measurement, and team performance for rapid, precise growth outcomes.

You’ll partner with the Director, Growth Strategy to shape the growth thesis, manage budgets, defend media assumptions in the Shared Model, and communicate results clearly to a tech client.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in paid media with at least two years leading a team.
• Eight-figure annual budgets experience and scaling lessons.
• Deep platform expertise across Meta and Google; knowledge of programmatic/CTV.
• Strong measurement skills: incrementalism, MMM, attribution.

Responsibilities

• Own media strategy: channel mix, funnel, audience, geo, budget across platforms.
• Ensure activation quality: campaign structure, QA, pacing, bidding and creative rotation.
• Contribute to Shared Model with forecast, ramp, and efficiency assumptions.
• Own measurement and reporting; tell an honest client story, even if tough.
• Lead Paid Social, Programmatic, and Paid Search Specialists; coach and grow the team.
• Manage platform relationships; evaluate new capabilities for client value.
• Ensure scale readiness to absorb significant spend increases.

Skills

Paid media leadership

Budget management

Cross-channel expertise

Agency or in-house leadership

Tools

Meta Ads

Google Ads

Programmatic platforms

CTV platforms

Job description

About Darkroom

Darkroom is the leading next-generation growth marketing firm engineering the brands of tomorrow. Founded in 2017, we set out to redefine what a modern agency could be, by replacing the inertia of legacy advertising behemoths with a model built for speed, intelligence, and measurable impact.

At our core, Darkroom is a human services company powered by Shadow, a universal AI commerce layer that integrates executive-level strategy with proprietary agentic technology. This fusion enables our teams to deliver outsized returns by enhancing creative output, operational efficiency, and revenue generation across every stage of the customer journey.

Our track record speaks for itself: billions in attributable revenue driven across e-commerce marketplaces, media networks, DTC ecosystems, and social commerce platforms. Every engagement feeds into our proprietary data infrastructure, enabling a continuous feedback loop that accelerates growth, improves margins, and compounds results across our client portfolio.

What began as a boutique design studio has evolved into one of the fastest-growing private companies in America (Inc. 5000) and among the most effective performance media agencies of the 2020s (Varos). Our founders were recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 for advancing the intersection of technology, marketing, and advertising, cementing Darkroom's role as a defining player in the future of media innovation.

About the Role

This is a dedicated leadership role on a single account. Our client is an AI company launching a new-to-market product, and Darkroom runs their growth strategy and paid media..

You own the media. Channel strategy, budget architecture, measurement approach, and the quality of what goes live. You lead the media team on the account and you are accountable for activation being fast, precise, and matched to the strategy.

You report into the Director, Growth Strategy, who owns the client relationship, the growth thesis, and the commercial commitments. This role works closely with them, then applies the strategy to the media channels: Growth decides where the business needs to go, you decide how media gets it there, and then you make sure it happens well.

This is a hands-on leadership seat, not an oversight one. You will be in the accounts, in the numbers, and in the room with a technical client who will ask hard questions. While you won’t be hands-on-keyboard building campaigns, you will be expected to know what is happening with them. Underneath you will be a team of ADs and below doing the actual campaign building.

This is a fully remote role supporting a team in the EST time zone (9 AM-5 PM EST).

What You'll Own

• Media strategy for the account. Channel mix, funnel architecture, audience and geo strategy, budget allocation across platforms, and the testing roadmap.

• Activation quality. Campaign structure, naming and taxonomy discipline, build QA, pacing, bid and budget management, and creative rotation. You set the standard for what a Darkroom build looks like on this account, and you hold the team to it

• Media inputs to the Shared Model. The jointly maintained media plan, forecast, and ramp model is where Darkroom's credibility with this client sits. You supply and defend the media assumptions inside it: efficiency curves, saturation points, ramp realism, and what happens to CAC as spend scales

• Measurement and reporting substance. What we measure, how we attribute, what the numbers mean, and what we do next because of them. You are accountable for the analytical honesty of the story we tell this client, including when the story is bad

• Team leadership. You lead the Paid Social, Programmatic, and Paid Search Specialists on the account. Standards, coaching, workload distribution, and performance. You grow people; you do not just route work to them

• Platform and partner relationships. Direct lines into the platforms, early access to betas, and the judgment to know which new capability is worth the client's budget and which is a rep's quota problem

• Scale readiness. This account is built to ramp. You are responsible for making sure the media operation can absorb significant spend increases without the wheels coming off

You should apply if this sounds like you:

• You have 7+ years in paid media with at least two years leading a team, ideally at a performance agency or in-house at a company managing meaningful spend

• You have personally run eight-figure annual media budgets and can speak to what broke as they scaled

• You have deep platform expertise across Meta and Google at minimum, with real fluency in at least one of programmatic, CTV, or emerging social. Breadth matters more than any single platform here

• You are genuinely good at measurement. Incrementality, MMM, geo testing, attribution limitations. You know where the numbers lie and you say so out loud

• You have worked with a sophisticated, technical client and held your own. This client's team will pressure-test your reasoning, and hand-waving will not survive it

• You have led media for a B2B or product-led software business, or you can make a credible case for why your consumer background transfers. This is not a DTC account

• You're comfortable working across Notion, Slack, Toggl, and Google Sheets, and ready to make Shadow your primary analytical surface

• You hold a high bar for your own output and expect the same from the people you lead

What It's Like to Work at Darkroom

Darkroom is not a typical agency. We are looking for A players who want to build something great. We move fast, think deeply, and expect every team member to bring insight and rigor to everything they touch. We hold a high bar for performance, creativity, and ownership, but we also support each other relentlessly. No egos, no red tape, just world-class talent building something remarkable.

We believe in autonomy with accountability, truth over comfort, and outcomes over optics.

• Unlimited PTO + US holidays: Rebooting is part of the work. Take the time you need to stay sharp.

• Remote-First Culture: Many roles are fully remote. Employees based in or near our New York or Lisbon HQs are expected to work hybrid with weekly in-office time. Hub locations include Brazil and Spain.

• Health & Wellness: Company-sponsored medical, dental, and vision coverage.

• Finances, growth, and retirement: Darkroom offers a robust 401(k) program with company match and profit-sharing opportunities to help you save and grow as the company grows.

• Parental Leave: Flexible parental leave to support new parents during this important transition.

• Growth: Our interdisciplinary model gives every Darkroomer exposure far beyond their core role. Grow your skills, expand your influence, and stay at the forefront of the industry.

Compensation:

The base salary range for this role is $150,000 per year. This range represents the anticipated minimum and maximum for this position and applies to candidates based in New York, including New York City, in compliance with the New York State Pay Transparency Law and the New York City Salary Transparency Law. Actual compensation within this range will be determined based on experience, skills, and qualifications. This role is also eligible for performance-based compensation. A summary of benefits is listed above.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Darkroom is an equal opportunity workplace. We are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national orientation, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.