The Behind-the-Scenes Roles Are Having Their Moment
For years, the media industry’s most visible hiring has centered on creators: writers, designers, and on-camera talent. Today’s listings tell a different story. The roles being posted with the strongest compensation and clearest growth trajectories are operational. Production managers, marketing strategists, compliance specialists, communications coordinators. These are the people who keep content organizations from collapsing under their own ambitions.
What’s driving this? Scale. As media companies expand into new platforms, membership models, and community products, the complexity of actually running these operations has outpaced many organizations’ infrastructure. You can see it in today’s listings: a literary agency needs someone to standardize its financial and legal workflows, a public media station wants a marketing manager to wrangle cross-departmental campaigns, and a digital education powerhouse is hiring coordinators to keep its social channels on schedule.
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If you’ve built your career on the operational side of media, on project management, the process design, the logistics that make creative work possible, your skills are in high demand right now. And several of today’s job postings come with salaries that reflect it.
Today’s Hot Jobs
Marketing Manager at Cascade Public Media
Why you should pay attention: Cascade PBS (formerly KCTS 9 and Crosscut) is one of the Pacific Northwest’s most respected media organizations, and this role sits at the intersection of brand strategy and campaign execution. The salary range of $96,000 to $109,000 is notably strong for a regional public media operation. Add in half-day Fridays during summer, a fully-vested 401(k) match from day one, and a hybrid schedule, and this becomes one of the more complete compensation packages in today’s listings.
What they need from you:
- Experience leading marketing and communications campaigns with data-driven benchmarking
- Ability to manage direct reports, including an Email and Digital Marketing Specialist and a Campaign Specialist
- Strong alignment with organizational values, including integrity, community, innovation, and diversity
- Comfort supporting organization-wide strategic and operational leadership alongside a Director of Programming
Apply for the Marketing Manager position at Cascade PBS
Operations, Finance, and Legal Compliance Manager at Park Fine and Brower Literary Management
What makes this role rare: Operations roles at literary agencies rarely get posted publicly because they’re usually filled through industry networks. PFB is looking for someone to oversee commission processing, royalty reporting, contract management, and data governance. If you’ve ever wanted to understand exactly how the business side of book publishing works, this is a masterclass disguised as a job. The position requires on-site presence in New York, which makes sense given the volume of sensitive financial and legal documents involved.
The ideal candidate brings:
- Strong operational mindset with experience in publishing, entertainment, or professional services
- Ability to manage financial workflows between a CFO and staff while ensuring accuracy in commission and royalty reporting
- Experience in maintaining and updating contract boilerplates to meet industry standards
- Impeccable attention to detail and strong cross-departmental communication skills
Apply for the Operations Manager role at Park Fine and Brower
Content and Community Manager at Hay House
The draw here: Hay House, the personal development publishing giant founded by Louise Hay, is hiring someone to manage two membership communities for author Rebecca Campbell. This role blends community engagement, digital content production, and virtual event coordination into a single position. The four-day work week is a genuine differentiator, and the $65,000 to $75,000 salary for a fully remote role with that schedule represents real value. You’ll be working closely with a bestselling author to steward her community, which means high visibility and creative latitude.
Core requirements:
- Experience managing online membership communities and digital content production
- Ability to coordinate virtual events and collaborate directly with a high-profile author
- Comfort stewarding brand voice across community platforms
- Alignment with Hay House’s mission of personal development and positive impact
Apply for the Content and Community Manager role at Hay House
Campus Master Plan Communications Coordinator at University of Texas at Austin
Why this deserves a closer look: This role is almost like a technical writing position for one of the largest university systems in the country. You’ll be translating complex campus planning concepts into clear, accessible messaging for a multi-year master plan initiative. The scope is enormous: you’ll work with campus leadership, planning teams, and external consultants to communicate a vision that will shape UT Austin’s physical campus for decades. For anyone with experience in institutional communications or planning-adjacent writing, this is a portfolio-defining opportunity.
Key qualifications:
- Experience gathering information and coordinating clear, consistent communications for complex projects
- Ability to translate technical planning concepts into messaging for diverse campus and community stakeholders
- Comfort working across multiple teams, including campus leadership, planning consultants, and communications staff
- Strong organizational skills for managing a multi-year initiative with evolving deliverables
Apply for the Communications Coordinator position at UT Austin
The Takeaway for Job Seekers
If your resume leans heavily on operational accomplishments, stop burying them beneath creative credits. Today’s listings show that companies are specifically seeking people who can build systems, manage workflows, and keep complex organizations running smoothly. Frame your experience around outcomes: the processes you standardized, the teams you coordinated, the reporting structures you improved.
Before you start applying, make sure your online presence reflects your current skill set. Here’s a solid guide on when and how to update your LinkedIn profile so recruiters find the version of you that matches what these roles demand. The media industry has always celebrated its front-of-house talent. Right now, the back-of-house people are getting their due.
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