Senior Retention Specialist, CRM

Apply; New York, Northern (NY, KY); Hybrid; USD 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited PTO

Remote-First Culture

Health, Dental & Vision Insurance

401(k) with company match

Parental leave

Growth opportunities

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Darkroom seeks a deeply technical Senior Retention Specialist to own CRM build for a high-growth consumer tech client. You will architect flows, set segmentation logic, and own channel KPIs to ensure deliverability and growth from day one.

You’ll implement lead capture, welcome series, activation journeys, loyalty, and win-back programs across email, SMS, push, and in-app channels. Strong templating and data chops are essential.

Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of hands-on lifecycle, CRM, or email marketing execution.
• Expertise in at least one enterprise ESP (Braze, SFMC, Iterable, Customer.io).
• Strong segmentation and data-driven decision making.
• Hands-on HTML/CSS for email and templating languages is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Build and QA flows, automations, and campaigns for the client program.
• Implement segmentation logic and dynamic content for personalization at volume.
• Own the ESP health: integrations, data feeds, templates, and modules.
• Monitor deliverability and escalate issues before they impact the program.
• Troubleshoot misfires, document fixes, and QA end-to-end before launch.
• Design and run testing roadmaps with leadership and report results.
• Collaborate with Copy & Content to ensure accurate builds and timelines.
• Develop and maintain client KPI reporting for reviews.

Skills

Lifecycle marketing

CRM management

Email marketing

Segmentation

HTML/CSS for email

Troubleshooting

A/B testing

Data-driven decisions

Tools

Braze

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Iterable

Customer.io

HTML

templating (Liquid/AMPscript)

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

We are looking for a deeply technical Senior Retention Specialist to own the CRM build for a high-growth consumer technology client. You will architect and implement the flows and automations that carry the program, own the segmentation logic behind them, and hold the channel KPIs that determine whether any of it lands in the inbox.

You are standing this program up from the ground, not inheriting it. The list starts near 20,000 and scales rapidly behind a significant acquisition investment — which puts real pressure on deliverability, list hygiene, and data hygiene from day one. Volume ramps to 40–60 emails a month, and increasingly granular segmentation is what generates that output. Automation is the core of the program: lead capture, welcome series, and the first-conversion funnel first, then subscription activation, loyalty, repeat purchase, and win-back. You will work in an enterprise-grade platform — Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Iterable, Customer.io, or comparable.

You are the person who knows the platform better than anyone else on the team. When something does not fire, does not render, or does not deliver, you find out why.

You should apply if this sounds like you

You are hands-on in the ESP every day and you like it there. You enjoy building a journey with real conditional logic, and you get genuine satisfaction from tracking down why one segment stopped converting.

• 3–5+ years of hands-on lifecycle, CRM, or email marketing execution, with deep expertise in at least one enterprise-grade ESP — Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Iterable, Customer.io, or comparable.

• You have built complex, event-triggered journeys from scratch: multi-branch logic, wait steps, conditional splits, holdouts, and cross-channel orchestration across email, SMS, push, and in-app.

• You are fluent in advanced segmentation — behavioral and product-event based, computed attributes, dynamic and personalized content — and you have scaled a program where segmentation drove a real increase in send volume.

• You have built the funnel that matters here: lead capture forms and opt-in logic, welcome series, first-conversion sequences, and subscription activation journeys.

• You have implemented loyalty, rewards, and win-back programs, and you treat driving repeat purchase and long-term value as a core outcome rather than a nice-to-have.

• You own deliverability as a discipline: domain warming and authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI), sending reputation, list hygiene, sunset policies, and what to do when a list grows very fast.

• You own the channel KPIs — open, click, click-to-open, conversion, deliverability, bounce, spam complaints, unsubscribe — and you can diagnose a drop in any of them.

• You are comfortable with HTML and CSS for email, and you know how to build templates and modules that render correctly across clients. Liquid, Handlebars, AMPscript, or a similar templating language is a strong plus.

• You understand data flows into the ESP: API-based events, webhooks, ETL or CDP integrations, and product event streams. You can hold a technical conversation with a client's engineering team.

• You are a systematic troubleshooter — you isolate variables, you check the data before the theory, and you document what you find.

• You design and execute proper tests: A/B and multivariate, with honest reads on significance.

• Excellent written communication and the ability to explain a technical problem to a non-technical audience clearly and without condescension.

A day in the life

• Build and QA the flows, automations, and campaigns that run your client's program — from lead capture and welcome through activation, loyalty, repeat purchase, and win-back.

• Implement the segmentation and audience logic behind the calendar, and build the dynamic content that makes personalization work at volume.

• Own the technical setup and health of the client's ESP instance: integrations, data feeds, event tracking, templates, and modules.

• Monitor and own channel performance and deliverability, escalating and fixing issues before they affect the program.

• Troubleshoot anything that misfires — a flow that does not trigger, a segment that under-populates, a template that breaks in Outlook — and document the fix.

• QA every build end to end before launch: logic, rendering, links, personalization, suppression.

• Design and run the testing roadmap with your Associate Director, and report results honestly.

• Partner with the Copy & Content Specialist to get copy and creative into the build accurately and on schedule.

• Build and maintain the reporting your Associate Director needs for client KPI reviews.

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 the 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 $60,000-$80,000 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.

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.