Lead Technical SEM Manager - Scribd.com
Scribd, Inc. is on a mission to advance human understanding. Our four products — Scribd®, Slideshare®, Everand™, and Fable — help billions of people across the globe move beyond access and into insight, application, and expertise.
Culture at Scribd, Inc.
We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.
We believe the best work happens when individual flexibility is balanced with meaningful community connection. Scribd Flex empowers employees to choose the workstyle and location that support their best performance, while committing to intentional in-person moments that strengthen collaboration and culture. Occasional in-person attendance is required for all Scribd, Inc. employees, regardless of location.
So what are we looking for in new team members? At Scribd, Inc., we hire for “GRIT.” Traditionally defined as the intersection of passion and perseverance toward long-term goals, GRIT reflects the mindset we expect from every employee. For us, it also serves as a practical framework for how we work: setting and achieving Goals, delivering Results within your role, contributing Innovative ideas and solutions, and strengthening the broader Team through collaboration and attitude.
This posting reflects an approved, open position within the organization.
About the team and role:
This role sits at the strategic and technical core of how Scribd grows through paid media, owning the systems and logic that determine what we advertise, to whom, and at what scale.
This is not a coding role, but it requires deep technical fluency. You'll define how our content catalog gets translated into ad platform inputs, design the logic and guardrails that determine what gets advertised and how, and set the roadmap for replacing manual campaign management with scalable, feed-driven systems. You'll partner closely with data engineers and product teams to bring that vision to life, but you're the one setting direction, not writing the pipelines yourself.
The role starts with SEM and expands from there as the program matures.
About you:
You've built performance marketing programs from the ground up, not inherited mature systems, starting with ambiguity and shaped them into scalable infrastructure. You know what it takes to go from manual, one-off campaigns to automated, feed-driven programs, and you've done it before in an in-house environment where you owned the outcomes.
You're energized by the early stages of building: defining what the system should do, making decisions with incomplete information, and iterating quickly when things don't work as expected. You think in systems, not campaigns and your instinct is to ask "how do we scale this?" rather than "how do we manage this manually?" At the same time, you're not afraid to get hands-on when needed, whether that's running campaigns to validate your feed logic or digging into data quality issues to understand why performance shifted.
You're comfortable in the space between marketing and technical teams and while you won’t be writing code, you can hold your own in conversations with data engineers, translate marketing needs into technical requirements, and push back when a proposed solution won't work for the channel. You see cross-functional partnership not as overhead, but as the core of how this kind of work gets done well.
In this role, you’ll:
Own paid media content feed infrastructure, designing, experimenting, and maintaining pipelines that translate Scribd.com’s content catalog into ad platform inputs
Ensure accuracy, safety, and quality of eligible content across DSA, PMax and other feed-based campaigns
Organize content for ad platform ingestion, including grouping documents and categories to improve efficiency, budget management, and bidding strategies
Define and maintain automation guardrails, including inclusion and exclusion logic of our 300M+ documents, balancing scale and risk
Run SEM campaigns hands on initially to validate feed logic, evaluate infrastructure, and long term partner with the SEM channel manager on strategy and roadmap
Be the primary liaison between product/content teams and channel managers, translating product priorities into performance/campaign implications and relaying performance back to cross functional teams
Build systems for monitoring feed health and coverage as content library grows and evolves
Design and lead experimentation at the feed/system level
Define the technical roadmap for performance marketing automation, identifying where manual processes should be systematized, sequencing build priorities, and aligning engineering and data resources against channel growth goals
Partner with data engineers on pipeline development, contributing to feed schema design, data mapping decisions, and diagnosing upstream data quality issues before they impact campaign performance
What we’re looking for:
7+ years (with 3+ years in-house) of experience in performance marketing, growth, or marketing ops/engineering with strong track record of owning and scaling paid acquisition programs with large user-generated or complex content systems
Demonstrated success managing complex, feed-based SEM campaigns at scale, including campaign architecture, expansion, and query to content or landing page coverage strategy
Fluency in feed-based or catalog driven ads systems with the ability to grow program through content coverage, feed inputs, and automation best practices
Proven ability building out structures that replace manual campaign management and scales across large content sets
Experience enabling and managing automated campaign types (such as DSA, Performance Max, AIMax, dynamic social ads) with performance-first approach
Strong cross functional collaboration skills, with track record of partnering with product and engineering teams to translate marketing needs into technical requirements
Comfort working closely with data engineers, contributing to ETL pipeline development and diagnosing data quality issues as they relates to campaign performance
Experience designing and executing experiments at the feed and system level, including feed changes, expansion or restriction logic, and content grouping and prioritization strategies
Strong communication skills, with ability to communicate priorities, learnings, tradeoffs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Preferred qualifications:
Experience with marketing subscription products or digital content services
Familiarity with mobile app marketing and app store optimization
Exposure to paid social catalog or dynamic ad formats (ex: Meta ad feeds, TikTok catalog ads)
At Scribd, Inc., your base pay is one part of your total compensation package and is determined within a range. Our pay ranges are based on the local cost of labor benchmarks for each specific role, level, and geographic location. San Francisco is our highest geographic market in the United States.
In the state of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $129,000 [minimum salary in our lowest geographic market within California] to $201,500 [maximum salary in our highest geographic market within California].
In the United States, outside of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $106,500[minimum salary in our lowest US geographic market outside of California] to $191,500 [maximum salary in our highest US geographic market outside of California].
In Canada, the reasonably expected salary range is between $135,000 CAD[minimum salary in our lowest geographic market] to $179,000 CAD[maximum salary in our highest geographic market].
We carefully consider a wide range of factors when determining compensation, including but not limited to experience; job-related skill sets; relevant education or training; and other business and organizational needs. The salary range listed is for the level at which this job has been scoped. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for a competitive equity ownership, and a comprehensive and generous benefits package.
Working at Scribd, Inc.
Are you currently based in a location where Scribd, Inc. can employ you?
Employees must have their primary residence in or near one of the following cities. This includes surrounding metro areas or locations within a typical commuting distance:
United States:
Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Dallas | Denver | Chicago | Houston | Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | New York City | Phoenix | Portland | Sacramento | Salt Lake City | San Diego | San Francisco | Seattle | Washington D.C.
Canada:
Ottawa | Toronto | Vancouver
Mexico:
Mexico City
Benefits at Scribd, Inc.
Scribd Flex (flexible work model)
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
Mental health support and disability coverage
Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick time, holidays, winter break, volunteer time, and sabbaticals
Paid parental leave and family support benefits
Retirement matching and employee equity
Learning and development programs and professional growth opportunities
Wellness and home office stipends
Complimentary access to the Scribd, Inc. suite of products
Enterprise access to leading AI tools
Get to Know Scribd, Inc.
About Scribd, Inc.
Life at Scribd, Inc.
We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing accommodations@scribd.com about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.
Scribd, Inc. is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, and believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas. Come join us in building something meaningful.