Head of Paid Growth Job at AlphaSignal in San Francisco

The Head of Paid Growth at AlphaSignal is a high-impact, capital-deployment role focused on scaling the company's AI newsletter and Pro subscription base. This is a hands-on position where you are responsible for managing a wide range of paid acquisition channels while obsessing over Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and long-term retention

Description

AlphaSignal|Full-Time|Remote|Performance-Based Bonus

Head of Paid Growth

AlphaSignal is the largest technical AI news company in the world, with a free newsletter that has grown to over 280,000 subscribers. We're now entering our next phase of growth: launching a Pro subscription plan and scaling aggressively across both free and paid tiers. The goal is to grow our free subscriber base to 1 million and scale our Pro subscriber base to tens of thousands — fast.

This is a capital deployment role, not a brand marketing role. Your job is to spend money to acquire subscribers for AlphaSignal's free newsletter and Pro subscription, stay under target CAC, and ensure the subscribers you bring in actually retain. Every dollar you deploy needs to turn into a high-quality, engaged subscriber.

You will operate across a wide range of paid channels: digital ads, sponsorships, creator partnerships, and native CPL deals. You are accountable for two numbers: the volume of subscribers acquired and the cost at which you acquire them. Lead quality and retention are just as important as growth. If subscribers churn, the acquisition does not count as a win.

This is a hands-on role first and foremost. You will be in the platforms, launching campaigns, negotiating deals, and analyzing performance data every day. Over time you will build and manage a small growth team, but you will always remain the primary operator.

The ideal candidate has personally scaled a media product's subscriber base to hundreds of thousands of users across both free and paid tiers, at a company such as The Information, NYT, Ground News, or similar.

What You’ll Own

Newsletter Subscriber Acquisition

• Deploy capital to grow the free AlphaSignal newsletter subscriber base through paid ads, sponsorships, creator partnerships, and native CPL deals.
• Optimize for subscriber quality and retention, not just volume. Track engagement, open rates, and downstream Pro conversion to ensure acquired subscribers stick.
• Build and scale paid acquisition campaigns targeting Pro subscription sign-ups and trials.
• Design and test conversion funnels and upgrade offers to turn free readers into paying Pro subscribers.
• Own Pro subscriber CAC targets and monitor retention closely to ensure acquisition spend translates into lasting revenue.

Paid Advertising

• Plan, launch, and optimize campaigns across Meta, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok Ads for both free sign-ups and Pro conversions.
• Manage budgets, bidding strategies, and creative testing to maximize subscriber volume while staying under CAC ceilings.

Sponsorships & Media Buys

• Source, negotiate, and manage sponsorships across podcasts, YouTube channels, and newsletters.
• Build a pipeline of sponsorship opportunities, measure each on a cost-per-subscriber basis, and scale what delivers high-retention users.

Content Creator Partnerships

• Identify and partner with creators on LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms to drive subscriber acquisition.
• Structure deals (flat fee, CPL, revenue share) and evaluate each partnership on retention and CAC, not just sign-up volume.

Native & CPL-Based Partnerships

• Establish cost-per-lead partnerships to embed AlphaSignal in the sign-up flows of complementary newsletters, tools, and services.
• Negotiate CPL rates, monitor lead quality and retention, and continuously expand the partner network.
• Continuously test new acquisition channels, Reddit ads, Quora, programmatic display, referral programs, app store cross-promotions, and beyond.
• Build a structured experimentation framework to quickly validate or kill new channels based on CAC and subscriber quality.

Team Building

• Over time, hire and develop a small growth team (e.g., media buyer, partnerships associate) as channels scale.
• Set team priorities and establish workflows, while staying hands‑on in execution yourself.

Who You Are

• You have personally scaled a media product, newsletter, or subscription business to hundreds of thousands of free and/or paid subscribers. This is non‑negotiable.
• Direct experience growing paid subscriptions at a media company (The Information, NYT, Ground News, or comparable) is strongly preferred.
• Deep hands‑on expertise running paid campaigns on Meta, X, LinkedIn, and/or TikTok, you’re still in the ad manager, not just reviewing dashboards.
• Strong negotiation skills with experience managing sponsorship, creator, and CPL partnership deals.
• Data‑driven mindset, you obsess over CAC, LTV, payback periods, and free‑to‑paid conversion rates.
• Comfortable operating independently in a remote environment, moving fast, and managing multiple channels simultaneously.
• Experience building and leading a small team while remaining a hands‑on operator.
• Familiarity with the AI/tech media ecosystem is a strong plus.

Compensation

Competitive base salary ($125k up to $150k) plus a quarterly performance bonus directly tied to subscriber growth, Pro subscription revenue, and cost‑per‑acquisition efficiency.

• Health, dental, and vision covered 80% (US employees only)
• Claude Pro Subscription and Viktor Credits
• 11 paid holidays off
• Async Operations: Ability to work in any time zone; however, employees working outside the U.S. must maintain U.S. business hours

Salary range

$125,000 - $150,000 per year (US Residents only)

Note on Compensation:

The listed salary range is specifically for residents of the United States. AlphaSignal practices location-based compensation; for candidates residing outside the US, base salary will be adjusted to reflect the local cost of labor and market benchmarks in your specific region. All candidates, regardless of location, remain eligible for our performance‑based bonus structure.