Head of SEO and AI Visibility

Smallpdf; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first

30 vacation days

Sabbatical leave

Parental leave

Job summary

Smallpdf is seeking an experienced SEO leader to shape how millions discover our products. You’ll own the organic search strategy, align with product, engineering and marketing, and drive business outcomes beyond rankings.

We prioritize experimentation, data-driven decisions, and AI Visibility to stay ahead as Search evolves. This remote-first role offers strong growth, a global scope, and a focus on measurable impact across subscriptions and ARR.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of SEO experience, ideally within a product-led SaaS or another high-scale digital product environment.
• Own SEO strategy end-to-end, balancing technical SEO, content, on-page, off-page and product-led initiatives to drive measurable business impact - not just rankings or traffic.
• Connect SEO initiatives to customer acquisition, activation, subscriptions, revenue and long-term growth, and use data to prioritize where to invest.
• Strong grasp of modern Search, with experience navigating algorithm updates, evolving ranking systems and adapting your strategy as the search landscape changes.
• Technically hands-on and understand crawling, indexation, internal linking, site architecture, structured data, Core Web Vitals and international SEO.
• Analytical and experimental by nature; form hypotheses, test ideas quickly, measure outcomes and iterate based on evidence.
• Comfortable with core SEO toolset, including Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog (or similar), and collaborating with Analytics teams to measure business impact.

Responsibilities

• Develop and evolve Organic Search strategy across traditional search engines and emerging AI-powered discovery experiences.
• Identify opportunities across technical SEO, product-led SEO, programmatic SEO, content, international SEO and AI Visibility.
• Continuously adapt our strategy as Search evolves.
• Prioritize initiatives based on business impact rather than SEO metrics alone.
• Partner with Data to understand how Search contributes to activation, subscriptions, retention and ARR.
• Build a culture of experimentation where hypotheses are tested quickly and decisions are driven by evidence.
• Coach and support an experienced SEO team while prioritizing high-impact work.
• Create clear planning, prioritization and reporting processes to increase execution speed and transparency.
• Work cross-functionally with Engineering, Product and Design to deliver ambitious initiatives.
• Lead Smallpdf's AI Visibility strategy and stay ahead of changes in AI-powered search.

Skills

SEO strategy

Technical SEO

Data analysis

Experimentation

Product-led SEO

AI visibility

Tools

Google Search Console

Ahrefs

Screaming Frog

Job description

About the opportunity:

Help shape how millions of people discover Smallpdf.

Search is changing faster than ever. AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's evolving search experience are fundamentally changing how people discover products online.

At Smallpdf, this matters more than almost anywhere else.

Every month, more than 60 million people use our products, and Organic Search remains one of our largest acquisition channels. Every improvement we make can impact millions of users and directly influence business growth.

We're looking for someone who wants to define what modern Search should look like - not just by improving rankings, but by connecting SEO, product thinking, experimentation and AI Visibility to real commercial outcomes.

This isn't a traditional SEO management role. You'll partner directly with our VP of Growth and work closely with Product, Engineering, Design, Data and Marketing to build one of the strongest organic growth engines in Europe.

What you'll own:

• Develop and evolve our Organic Search strategy across both traditional search engines and emerging AI-powered discovery experiences.

• Identify the biggest opportunities across technical SEO, product-led SEO, programmatic SEO, content, international SEO and AI Visibility.

• Continuously adapt our strategy as Search evolves.

Turn Search into an even stronger growth engine

• Prioritize initiatives based on business impact rather than SEO metrics alone.

• Partner with Data to understand how Search contributes to activation, subscriptions, retention and new ARR.

• Build a culture of experimentation where hypotheses are tested quickly and decisions are driven by evidence.

Build a high-performing SEO operating model

• Coach and support an experienced SEO team while helping them prioritize the highest-impact work.

• Create clear planning, prioritization and reporting processes that increase execution speed and transparency.

• Work cross-functionally with Engineering, Product and Design to deliver ambitious initiatives.

Lead Smallpdf's AI Visibility strategy

• Help define how Smallpdf appears across AI-powered search experiences.

• Experiment with new approaches to increasing visibility, authority and brand presence across LLM-powered discovery platforms.

• Stay ahead of changes in Search before they become industry best practices.

We'd love to hear from you if you:

• You have 5+ years of SEO experience, ideally within a product-led SaaS or another high-scale digital product environment.

• You've owned SEO strategy end-to-end, balancing technical SEO, content, on-page, off-page and product-led initiatives to drive measurable business impact - not just rankings or traffic.

• You think commercially. You're comfortable connecting SEO initiatives to customer acquisition, activation, subscriptions, revenue and long-term growth, and use data to prioritize where to invest.

• You have a strong grasp of modern Search, with experience navigating algorithm updates, evolving ranking systems and adapting your strategy as the search landscape changes.

• You're technically hands-on and understand topics such as crawling, indexation, internal linking, site architecture, structured data, Core Web Vitals and international SEO.

• You're analytical and experimental by nature. You enjoy forming hypotheses, testing ideas quickly, measuring outcomes and iterating based on evidence rather than assumptions.

• You're comfortable with the core SEO toolset, including Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog (or similar), and enjoy partnering with Analytics teams to understand and measure business impact.

• You're comfortable moving between strategy and execution. One day you're discussing long-term direction with leadership; the next you're diving into a technical issue or reviewing an experiment.

• You're excited by how AI is reshaping Search. Whether you've already worked on AI Visibility and LLM optimization or you're actively experimenting and learning, you're eager to help define what modern Search looks like.

• Formal people management experience is welcome, but not essential. We're equally interested in people who've demonstrated leadership through strategic ownership, cross-functional influence and delivering meaningful outcomes.

Bonus points if you've worked with:

• Product-led Growth (PLG) or freemium business models

• International SEO across multiple markets and languages

• Programmatic or product-led SEO at scale

• High-traffic consumer or B2B SaaS products

• AI Search, LLM optimization or emerging search technologies

Why this role is different:

• At many companies, SEO is treated as a support function.

• At Smallpdf, it's one of our biggest growth levers.

• You'll influence how tens of millions of people discover our products every month, work directly with leadership that deeply understands Search, and have the freedom to challenge existing assumptions, test bold ideas and shape the future of Organic Growth.

• You’ll also join at a unique moment, as Search is undergoing its biggest transformation in more than a decade. We believe the companies that adapt first will define the next generation of product discovery.

Why Smallpdf?

• For over a decade, we've helped millions of people make document work simple.

• Today, more than 60 million people use our products every month across web and mobile.

• We're a remote-first company with teammates across Europe, combining the speed of a startup with the scale of a global product used in nearly every country.

• We value curiosity, ownership and thoughtful experimentation. We move quickly, make decisions based on evidence, and give people the autonomy to do their best work.

What we offer:

You get to impact the way over 60 million people get work done every month.

Push boundaries and dare to fail - that’s how we learn!

Enjoy the flexibility of a remote work environment, and meet your team occasionally to work together and strengthen the team bond.

30 vacation days - yep, you read that right - that you can take whenever you need them.

Need a long break? We offer sabbatical leave to employees who’ve been with us for over 2 years.

16 weeks parental leave - 100% of your salary - for all new parents

A personal development budget of up to 2000CHF every year, plus days off for courses or training.

Internal knowledge sharing and external coaching options during your working hours to boost both your hard and soft skills.

Hack days to challenge you and your team, plus build amazing things.

Compensation philosophy

At Smallpdf, we believe compensation should be fair, transparent and thoughtfully aligned with the value each person brings to our team. Our approach balances several key factors - current market trends, role expectations, seniority, experience, and geographic location - to ensure every offer is both competitive and equitable.

We review our salary ranges regularly to stay in step with the evolving market, and we make decisions based on skills, impact, and responsibility rather than negotiation strength. Our goal is simple: to recognize and reward great work, support long-term growth and create a compensation structure that feels fair, consistent and grounded in integrity.

We want everyone at Smallpdf to feel valued, supported and empowered to do their best work - and our compensation philosophy is designed to reflect exactly that.

Hiring policy

Smallpdf is an equal-opportunity employer, and we believe our strength comes from a team that reflects a wide range of backgrounds, identities, perspectives, and lived experiences. We welcome applicants of all genders, ethnicities, ages, abilities, orientations, and life paths. You’ll also have the option to share your pronouns and answer an anonymous demographic questionnaire when you apply. This information is completely voluntary, but it helps us stay accountable in building an inclusive and equitable hiring process.

We use AI thoughtfully in our day-to-day work, but we value human curiosity, creativity, and integrity above all. We’re excited to meet candidates who bring genuine expertise, real stories, and authentic experience to the table.