Founding Growth Marketer

AI-Forward Growth Marketer

We're hiring our first AI-forward growth marketer to 10x our paid and organic channels: SEO/AEO, PLG, and content. We're especially looking for someone who spikes in social and content marketing. If you're obsessed with performance, love end-to-end ownership, and want to build an acquisition engine for a mission that changes lives, you'll thrive here.
Who You Are

You understand that content is distribution, and that for our audience that means social first. We capture some of the most powerful real stories in workforce development, and most of them never get told well. You change that. You can take a raw graduation clip or a five-minute student interview and cut three things from it: a hook for TikTok and Reels, a written story for SEO and AEO, and a referral asset alumni actually want to share. You measure content like a growth channel, not a brand exercise: reach, watch time, and how many of those views turn into an enrollment. And you've proven you can do it: you've personally grown an account to millions of views and 10K+ followers, and you can point to the content strategy that got it there.
You believe everyone deserves a second chance. This isn't a cause you discovered in the job description. You've thought deeply about poverty, incarceration, and opportunityand you want your work to matter. You understand that behind every campaign metric is a real person trying to change their life. That weight drives you, not burdens you.
You have a genuine point of view on marketing. You know what works, what's overrated, and what most teams get wrong. You don't default to best practices when your instincts say otherwise. You have opinions on creative, on channels, on messagingand you're willing to defend them with data. Safe, hedge-everything marketing bores you. We're not looking for someone who's equally proficient across every marketing discipline. We want someone who is world-class in one or two areasmost likely paid acquisition, SEO, or channel marketingand capable enough everywhere else.
You are AI-native, not AI-curious. You've built real workflows that compress hours into minutesautomated creative testing pipelines, AI-assisted email systems, reporting dashboards that update themselves. You think like an orchestrator: breaking work into discrete tasks, routing each to the right agent, and stitching outputs together into something production-ready. You maintain your own repo of AI skills and workflowsversion-controlled, documented, and shared with teammatesand you help others build their own so the whole organization compounds. If you're still at the stage of typing questions into a chat interface or don't know how to set up an MCP connection, this role isn't for you. The gap between a marketer who builds these systems and one who doesn't is now measured in 10x output, not 10% efficiency.
You are curious and learn fast. You know that reaching low-income adults in their mid-20s to mid-40smany formerly incarcerated, most mobile-firstis fundamentally different from marketing a SaaS product. You think about SMS and mobile-native touchpoints, not just landing pages. You think about community trust and word-of-mouth, not just attribution models. You understand that the channels that work for this populationfield events, community partners, organic search, referral loops from alumnimay look different from a typical growth playbook, and you're excited by that challenge.
You are data-driven and creatively rigorous. You don't guess about what's workingyou measure it. You obsess over attribution: you want to know not just how many students enrolled, but which channel, which creative, which touchpoint drove the decision. But you also know that data tells you what happened, not why, and that the best creative insights come from human judgment. You hold both things at once.
You are entrepreneurial. You're scrappy, autonomous, and low-maintenance. You don't wait for permission or perfect conditions. You run MVPs, see what works, kill what doesn't, and ship again. You're comfortable being the primary person accountable for acquisitionand you find that energizing, not scary. You roll up your sleeves and solve problems. No job is too small.
You play to win. You stay optimistic when things are slow, keep moving when campaigns underperform, and don't catastrophize when a test fails. You're not rattled by ambiguity. You bring a "yes, and" mindset that finds a path forward instead of reasons to slow down.
You work hard. You show up early, stay late, and do what needs to get doneno ego, no excuses. This isn't a 9-to-5. The average person at Emerge works 60+ hours/week because we care about the mission. If that sounds miserable, this isn't for you. If it sounds exciting, you'll fit right in.
You are a straight shooter. You don't hide bad news or dress up underperforming metrics. You bring clarity, honesty, and accountability to every interactioninternally and externally.
You are a clear writer. You don't need to write the next great novel, but you must communicate simply and precisely. Great copy is a superpower in this role. You value brevity and clarity over length and jargon. You understand that in marketing, every word either earns attention or loses it.
Candidate Profiles We're Excited About

The right hand who's ready to lead. You learned the ropes working for an exceptional growth marketermaybe at a high-growth startup or a scaled tech companyand now you're ready to go do your boss's job. You were the second-in-command who actually ran the campaigns, built the dashboards, and made the calls. Now you want full ownership.
The analytical mind turned marketer. Earlier in your career you did something rigorousbanking, consulting, data scienceand then pivoted to tech marketing because you wanted to build, not advise. You're more left-brain than right-brain, which makes you lethal on the performance and attribution side. You work incredibly hard and you bring structure to chaos.
The agency convert. You spent formative years at an agencymaybe as a strategist, media buyer, or account leadworking across multiple clients, industries, and briefs. You moved into tech because you wanted to own outcomes, not just deliverables. You're versatile, fast, and know how to produce high-quality creative under pressure.
The big tech marketer ready for a real challenge. You started at a company like Google, Meta, or Square, where you learned marketing fundamentals and how to work cross-functionally. But you didn't staybecause you wanted to get your hands dirty at a smaller company where your work has direct, measurable impact. You've been a first or second marketing hire before, and you're ready to do it again for a mission that matters.
Requirements

Willing to relocate and work in-person in New York City
Passionate about working with underrepresented communities and tackling challenges related to poverty and inequity
5+ years of hands-on growth marketing experience with deep expertise in at least one core channel (paid search, SEO, or channel/field marketing)
Proven track record of owning campaigns end-to-endstrategy, creative, execution, and analysisnot just managing agencies or writing copy while someone else ran the campaign
Demonstrated ability to build AI-powered marketing workflowsnot just using AI tools, but building automated systems that meaningfully changed how you operate (we'll ask you to walk us through specific examples)
Experience taking a project from 0 to 1: you've been a founder, first marketing hire, or built something impressive on your own
Strong analytical abilityyou're comfortable building attribution models and turning metrics into decisions
You've personally grown a social account to at least 10K+ followers, turned it into an acquisition engine, and you can walk us through exactly how you did it.
Bonus Points

Experience building channel partnerships with companies that serve the same demographicthink fintechs like Chime or Cash App, benefits platforms, or other products that low-income adults already use and trust. You see these as co-marketing and distribution channels, not just brand plays.
Experience marketing to low-income, non-traditional, or underserved audiences
Experience in ed-tech, workforce development, or social impact organizations
Experience with out-of-home advertising, field marketing, or community-based outreach