Darkroom Studios

Title: Associate Director, Programmatic Location: New York; NY, USA Department: Paid Media Job Description: Employment Type Full time Location Type Hybrid Department Paid Media 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 and among the most effective performance media agencies of the 2020s. 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 hiring an Associate Director, Programmatic to build and lead Darkroom's programmatic capability inside the Paid Media function. This is a foundational hire, not a standard channel-management role. Today, Darkroom is strongest across Meta and Google. Our next stage requires deeper expertise across Amazon DSP, CTV, OLV, Retail Media Networks, high-impact display, and privacy-safe media environments, and you'll be the person who builds that sub-function from the ground up. The ideal candidate is a senior programmatic strategist with hands-on experience activating and scaling programmatic media across high-growth brands, someone who knows how to use Amazon DSP, streaming video, OLV, CTV, and broader programmatic channels to create demand, prove incrementality, and connect media investment back to business outcomes. Programmatic is the primary focus of this role, but it's not a full-time channel on every account at every point in time. When programmatic work is light or between test cycles, you'll flex into Paid Social execution across Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and Pinterest, so the role is built for someone who wants deep specialization without losing a holistic, hands-on media skill set. You'll report to the Managing Director of Paid Media and partner closely with Paid Social, Paid Search, Creative, Growth Strategy, and Analytics. What We're Building We're empowering small teams with technology that makes it easier to market and grow businesses. Our current focus is to help consumer brands shift from "workflow automation" to "agent management" within their marketing operations. Shadow is the AI coordination layer, providing shared AI memory, centralized agent control, and model orchestration for marketing teams. The Agency Behind the Product Shadow is built alongside Darkroom, a performance marketing agency that's been operating for 10 years, employs 100+ people, runs 100+ clients at a time, and has worked with over 1,000 consumer brands. The agency is both our proving ground and our first user, which means the programmatic function you build here gets tested against real client budgets and real business outcomes from day one, and feeds directly into Shadow's programmatic backbone. What You'll Own - With support from the Paid Media MD, build Darkroom's programmatic media capability across Amazon DSP, CTV, OLV, RMNs, display, and high-impact media. - Lead strategy, planning, activation, optimization, and measurement for programmatic campaigns across key client accounts. - Serve as the internal subject matter expert for Amazon DSP, retail media, streaming video, connected TV, online video, and programmatic buying strategy. - Develop test plans that connect programmatic investment to business outcomes, not just impressions, reach, or platform-reported conversions. - Partner with Analytics and Growth Strategy to design incrementality-minded test structures across geo holdouts, matched-market tests, exposure-log measurement, clean rooms, and lift studies. - Build clear client-facing narratives around the role of programmatic in a broader growth system. - Evaluate programmatic partners, publishers, DSPs, RMNs, and measurement vendors. - Establish programmatic best practices, SOPs, QA standards, pacing rules, and reporting expectations. - Collaborate with Creative to define channel-specific creative requirements across video, display, high-impact, and RMN environments. - Create case studies that prove programmatic's incremental impact and support future new business. - Educate the broader Paid Media team on programmatic strategy, terminology, platform capabilities, measurement expectations, and client use cases. - Help define the long-term roadmap for building a programmatic practice inside Darkroom. - Work closely with the Shadow product team to enhance Shadow's programmatic backbone. - Step in on Paid Social campaign management and optimization across Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and Pinterest when programmatic priorities are lighter, acting as a flexible resource for the broader Paid Media team. Must Have - 6-8+ years of programmatic media experience, preferably in a fast-paced agency or high-growth brand environment. - Deep experience with Amazon DSP is required. - Strong experience planning or activating CTV and OLV campaigns. - Experience with Retail Media Networks and audience-led media environments. - Hands-on Paid Social media buying experience across at least two of Meta, TikTok, Reddit, or Pinterest, comfortable executing and optimizing campaigns when programmatic priorities allow. - Ability to build programmatic strategies that connect to business outcomes, incrementality, and budget decisioning. - Strong understanding of programmatic buying models, inventory quality, audience strategy, frequency management, supply paths, brand safety, and measurement limitations. - Experience working with streaming video, display, high-impact, contextual, publisher-direct, and DSP-based media. - Comfort building test plans, media forecasts, budget recommendations, and client-facing measurement readouts. - Experience partnering with analytics or measurement teams on incrementality testing, lift studies, clean rooms, exposure logs, or MMM inputs. - Strong client communication skills. You can explain complex programmatic concepts in plain English and make a clear recommendation. - High ownership mindset. This is a new function, so you should be excited to build systems, not just inherit them. - Comfort operating in a remote, fast-moving, high-accountability environment. Nice to Have - Experience with MMM, MTA, and strong measurement points of view. - Ability to not only execute incrementality tests, but to interpret data outputs, translate next steps into media strategy, and get client buy-in. - Experience managing programmatic and paid social together on the same account, with a point of view on how the two channels should work together in a full-funnel strategy. - Hands-on experience across the full Paid Social set (Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and Pinterest), rather than just one or two platforms. Culture Fit - You're fluent in Amazon DSP, CTV, OLV, and programmatic media, and can explain why programmatic matters beyond reach and impressions. - You know how to pressure-test whether a channel is actually creating incremental impact. - You're excited by the idea of being the first dedicated programmatic lead inside a growing Paid Media department, and want to help build the operating system: SOPs, best practices, QA, partner POVs, case studies, internal training. - You want to help Darkroom expand beyond Meta and Google into a more sophisticated full-funnel media practice. - You're comfortable moving between deep specialization and hands-on execution. Building a new function some weeks, running paid social campaigns across a broad channel mix the next, without treating either as beneath you. Not the bar: no Amazon DSP experience, no meaningful CTV or OLV experience, execution-only backgrounds with no strategic or client-facing ability, an inability to explain programmatic measurement beyond platform-reported metrics, or no interest in building a function from the ground up. 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. Equal Opportunity Statement Darkroom is an equal opportunity workplace. We are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, 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.

• Own the marketing content calendar end-to-end, maintained at least 4 weeks ahead across all channels — the single source of truth for what ships when. • Run the delivery motion for launches and announcements: every brand moment gets a plan, owners, dates, and assets tracked to publish. Nothing ships late or ad hoc. • Get approvals across the team and leadership, flagging bottlenecks within 1 business day. • Queue and publish all approved content on schedule across LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and X. • Own X as a channel: repurpose LinkedIn and newsletter content the same week it publishes, adapted to the platform rather than copy-pasted. • QA everything before it goes live: copy, assets, links, tagging, formatting. • Keep our scheduling tools, asset libraries, and content archives organized and current. • Own community engagement across Darkroom's social channels, responding to comments, DMs, and mentions in a voice that reflects our brand. • Monitor social sentiment and surface relevant conversations, trends, or opportunities to the broader team. • Track community health and report on what is generating real conversation versus noise. • Maintain the creator CRM and keep it current weekly — our creator partnership program is run by the VP of Marketing, and you keep its logistics tight. • Deploy the biweekly email newsletter: build the send in the ESP, QA, schedule, ship, and report performance. Content comes from the VP of Marketing; deployment is yours. • Own email list management: hygiene, segmentation, imports, compliance, and growth tracking. • Support podcast production: guest scheduling, recording logistics, and publish coordination for the monthly episode and its clips. • Deploy PR moments: when Darkroom lands press (trade features, announcements, awards), you run the distribution plan across channels, coordinate timing and assets, and track coverage.

• Develop and implement comprehensive SEO strategies aligned with client business objectives across e-commerce, DTC, and consumer brands. • Conduct keyword research, site audits, and competitor analyses to identify growth opportunities in both traditional and AI-powered search environments. • Continuously analyze and report on SEO performance metrics, providing actionable insights and clear recommendations to clients and internal stakeholders. • Monitor rankings, organic traffic, and AI citation frequency, adjusting tactics based on performance data. • Optimize client content and digital properties for visibility within LLM-powered search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude). • Develop and execute strategies to increase how often and how favorably client brands are referenced in AI-generated answers and recommendations. • Monitor the rapidly shifting landscape of how LLMs source, rank, and cite information, and translate changes into actionable client strategies. • Build and maintain frameworks for tracking “AI share of voice” across generative search platforms. • Collaborate with content teams to build strategies that serve dual purposes: ranking in traditional search AND being surfaced by AI systems as authoritative, trustworthy sources. • Build and maintain effective link-building campaigns to enhance domain authority and AI discoverability. • Identify high-value external partnership opportunities, guest posting placements, and relevant industry directories. • Monitor and manage backlink profiles to maintain a strong online reputation. • Create and manage content briefs, oversee article creation, and perform QA to ensure premium quality outputs across all content deliverables. • Partner with cross-functional teams (Content, Creative, Paid Media, Marketplaces, Retention) to deliver integrated marketing campaigns. • Present complex SEO and GEO insights to clients and stakeholders in clear, accessible language. • Support the Associate Director in developing proprietary methodologies, playbooks, and reporting frameworks for AI marketing services. • Foster a culture of continuous learning and experimentation, sharing AI search best practices across the broader Darkroom organization.

• Work directly with a Retention Marketing Manager to execute data-driven email and SMS strategies for our DTC/e-commerce clients. • On a daily basis, you will execute tasks for clients including writing, proofing, and scheduling email and SMS campaigns. • You’ll work directly with clients to manage the revision and approval process of their emails and SMS messages • On a monthly basis, you’ll develop creative campaign concepts for your client's retention marketing calendars. • You’ll work directly with our in-house design team to develop the design approach, ensuring the design vision for campaigns and flows comes to live, and managing the revision and approval process for client emails. • You’ll produce the copy for your campaign concepts and work directly with the client to gain approval on briefs before sending them to our in-house designers. • Driven and enjoy coming to the team and clients with new retention marketing ideas. • Execute automation/flow logic set-up, pop-up builds, and app integrations.

• Develop custom Shopify themes and functionalities from scratch, ensuring responsive design, cross-browser compatibility, and optimal site performance. • Implement third-party Shopify apps and integrations to enhance store functionality. • Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code, adhering to best practices. • Collaborate with design and marketing teams to translate UI/UX designs into engaging and responsive websites. • Maintain, debug, and improve existing Shopify sites, identifying areas for optimization. • Manage backend tasks such as product catalog updates, customer data integrations, payment gateway setups, and other custom integrations. • Optimize sites for speed, scalability, SEO, and conversions. • Conduct comprehensive QA and testing processes before deployment. • Stay updated on emerging Shopify trends, tools, and technologies, and proactively suggest improvements.

• Organic Content Strategy: Lead high-tempo content strategy and direction for full-funnel organic programs, typically Instagram and TikTok. Own content pillars, editorial calendars, creative direction, and the briefing process end-to-end. • Short Form Video Expert: Deliver expert advice, concepts, directions, and briefs to grow audiences and sell products through native short-form video. • Community and Brand Voice: Own each brand's social voice and presence. Direct community management, trend response, and the rapid-turnaround content that keeps a brand relevant in the feed. • Data Analysis: Translate a client's brand strategy and platform data into clear, compelling content concepts. This includes metrics like hook retention, watch time, completion rate, engagement rate, saves, shares, follower growth, and comment sentiment. You're super comfortable adapting content to move these numbers. • Cross-Team Collaboration: Brief Designers and Editors on the creation of assets including short-form video, carousels, Stories, motion, and storyboards. You're capable of jumping into Figma to shape up a layout or whip up an edit in CapCut yourself without concern, if need be. This isn't the role for strategy-only folks. • Executive Presentation: Present content work and channel strategy to stakeholders and clients with clarity, confidence, and strategic rationale. • Performance Iteration: Monitor platform data and social listening in collaboration with the team to inform content iterations and improve results over time. Identify organic winners worth promoting into paid. • Team Building: Establish processes, systems, and content frameworks that raise the floor on quality and speed. Continuously refine our Organic Social service so it scales without losing rigor as volume grows.

• You'll sit squarely at the intersection of back‑end and front‑end, ensuring seamless integration between APIs, databases, UIs, and ML services. • You'll design, build, and scale features end‑to‑end, especially our AI/ML‑powered experiences, while mentoring peers and driving architecture decisions. • Architect and implement full‑stack features, from database schema to React components, optimized for scale and reliability. • Build and maintain RESTful/GraphQL APIs, data pipelines, and distributed services in GCP. • Integrate, prompt, and debug LLMs and generative AI tools; own RAG or fine‑tuning pipelines. • Ensure front‑end and back‑end systems interoperate flawlessly, minimize friction, optimize data flow, and enforce contracts. • Collaborate with product, research, design, and infra teams to define requirements, iterate rapidly, and ship production‑grade code. • Monitor performance, reliability, and security. • Mentor junior engineers through code reviews, architecture reviews, and shared best practices.

• Build and scale the ingestion layer across third-party marketing APIs (Meta, Google, TikTok, GA4, Shopify, Klaviyo, and more) — auth, extraction, rate-limit handling, backfill, and incremental sync. • Design normalization and transformation pipelines that map messy, platform-specific data into shared, queryable schemas (e.g. a unified creative/campaign/order model). • Own data reliability at scale — sync accuracy, freshness, coverage, and observability. Build the systems that detect when a connection breaks or a number looks wrong before a user does. • Engineer for multi-tenant scale and security: pipelines and storage that stay performant and cost-efficient across 1,000+ users and hundreds of connected brands — with strict data isolation, privacy, and compliance built in, not bolted on. • Partner with the AI and data-science teams to expose clean, well-modeled data the agent can retrieve and reason over.

• Creative Strategy: Lead high-tempo creative strategy and direction for full-funnel ad programs, typically Meta and TikTok, but also YouTube, Amazon, and Display Platforms. • Short Form Video Expert: Deliver expert advice, concepts, directions, and briefs to sell products and services through short-form video. • Data Analysis: Translate client’s marketing strategy and performance data into clear, compelling ad concepts (This includes using metrics like thumb-stop rate, hold rate, and clickthrough rate. You’re super comfortable adapting creatives to impact these metrics.) • Cross-Team Collaboration: Brief Designers and Editors on the creation of assets including static ads, animations, mobile-first videos, and storyboards for short-form content. You’re capable of jumping into shape up a design in Figma or whip up an ad yourself without concern, if need be. This isn’t the role for strategy-only folks. • Executive Presentation: Present creative work to stakeholders and clients with clarity, confidence, and strategic rationale. • Performance Iteration: Monitor performance data in collaboration with the marketing team to inform creative iterations and improve results over time. • Team Building: Assist with establishing processes, systems, and testing frameworks that raise the floor on quality and speed. Continuously refine our Performance Creative service so it scales without losing rigor as volume grows.

• Creative Strategy: Lead high-tempo creative strategy and direction for full-funnel ad programs, typically Meta and TikTok, but also YouTube, Amazon, and Display Platforms. • Short Form Video Expert: Deliver expert advice, concepts, directions, and briefs to sell products and services through short-form video. • Data Analysis: Translate client’s marketing strategy and performance data into clear, compelling ad concepts (This includes using metrics like thumb-stop rate, hold rate, and clickthrough rate. You’re super comfortable adapting creatives to impact these metrics.) • Cross-Team Collaboration: Brief Designers and Editors on the creation of assets including static ads, animations, mobile-first videos, and storyboards for short-form content. You’re capable of jumping into shape up a design in Figma or whip up an ad yourself without concern, if need be. This isn’t the role for strategy-only folks. • Executive Presentation: Present creative work to stakeholders and clients with clarity, confidence, and strategic rationale. • Performance Iteration: Monitor performance data in collaboration with the marketing team to inform creative iterations and improve results over time.