GENERAL ROLE DESCRIPTION 

We’re hiring a storyteller to build a long-form video channel that makes people hungry, leaves them longing for Alaska (whether they’ve been there or not), and, every so often, moves them to tears.  This is a development-first role but with good working knowledge in production and management. You'll spend more time finding stories, researching them, discovering new culinary trends than deep in production logistics. You need to know the whole production process, as you'll be responsible for it end to end but we are not hiring just a pair of hands. We're hiring for a point of view. This role reports to our VP of Creative and Brand.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Finding and developing the stories. What it takes to come back for a third season on an Alaska fishing boat. Follow the next generation fisherperson as she takes over her family’s setnet site. Follow a chef host as they put the secrets to perfectly crispy skin to the test. You'll build and maintain a real pipeline of story leads, pitch them with a clear vision and argument for why each one matters towards channel and  brand growth and easily move on from the ones that don't earn their place.
• Pre-interviews and research. Long phone calls before anyone books a flight. Do the research, know a subject's history, their vocabulary, the thing they're proud of and the thing they don't usually talk about. Walking into a shoot with a question no one else would have thought to ask.
• Setting up production for success. Find the right crew, work with multiple producers, create scope, learn to schedule around tides and fishing openers, directing in the field, guiding the edit, delivering on schedule. You'll do some of this yourself, work with content operations and hire out the rest. You'll know when a piece needs a full crew and when it needs one person with a camera and two days of patience—must be flexible towards ideas based on budget.
• Building the long-form channel and distributing across short form channels. Programming a slate, not posting videos. You will be responsible for series architecture, release cadence, thumbnails and titles that are on brand and perform on YouTube. You will oversee a Social Media Manager and be accountable for the channel's growth and successful articulation of the brand, and you'll have real opinions about how to get it there.
• Managing a content team. An Editorial Content Producer and a Social Media Manager report to you. Your job is to give them clear content direction, unblock them, defend their good work, learn from them as much as help them get better. Guide their productions, distribution strategies and presentations.
• Drive performance-minded creative that is worth watching. You’ll lead ideation and review for not just long form video but also paid ad video, bringing a sharp point of view on hooks, storytelling, pacing and brand. You’ll know what makes people stop, watch and act on both conversion and engagement content channels. You use performance to make the creative better, not just more optimized.
• Making the food look like it tastes. About  half of the content we make has a seafood culinary focus. Beyond content around Alaskan lifestyle, you need genuine range to cover: content that shows appetite appeal, working with culinary personalities to keep viewers attention span—the goal here is both useful and inspiring food content.
• Protecting the brand. We're a company built on dedication and reverence for wild-caught fish from Alaska; we take inspiration from the place it’s from, the hard working people who provide it and thanks for the plates it ends up on— this doesn't need embellishing, just real celebration.. You'll be one of the loudest voices in the room about what's true to that and what isn't.

What Success Looks Like

• A long-form channel with real, compounding audience growth — subscribers who came for one film and stayed for the next.
• A story pipeline deep enough that we're choosing between good options, not scrambling.
• Two direct reports doing the best work of their careers.
• The team watches a rough cut and gets hungry. Then, about four minutes later, gets a little choked up. We tell stories that make Alaskans proud.

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES

• 7+ years in content, documentary, or brand film. Titles vary; the reel is what matters. Ability to deliver.
• Experience reviewing creative data around organic and paid social channels.
• A body of work with at least one deeply character-driven piece you developed yourself, from lead to delivery.
• Demonstrated management experience. Not "led freelancers" — actual direct reports, reviews, growth.
• Fluency across two worlds: the outdoors and food. You’re as comfortable around commercial fishing boats, rough weather and working waterfronts as you are in kitchens, with chefs and thinking about appetite. Direct experience in either world is a plus. Most candidates are strong in one. We need someone who can speak both languages.
• Real understanding of long-form platform mechanics like YouTube. You can talk about viewership metrics and launch strategies.
• Willing and able to travel often. Alaska in bad weather and test kitchens within the same quarter. Expect roughly 30% travel, weighted heavily toward the summer.
• Full working knowledge of the production stack: research and development process, budgets, crew, camera, audio, post, color, sound, delivery. You don't have to touch all of it. You have to be un-bluffable about all of it.
• Who this isn’t for: If your only experience is primarily execution on someone else’s ideas — this is the wrong role, and you'd be unhappy in it. We have great production partners and are looking for more. What we don't have is someone whose ideas are the reason the work exists.

What to include in your application:

1. A reel. Required. A cut piece or a link to three finished projects, with a line on each telling us specifically what was yours: the idea, the development, the direction, the edit. 
2. One page on a story you developed from nothing. How you found it, what you learned in pre-interviews that changed your approach, and what you'd do differently.
3. Three pitches for us. One character-driven, one culinary, one your call. A paragraph each. We're not looking for polish, we're looking for what you notice.

The starting salary range for this position is $125,000 - $130,000, commensurate with skills and experience. Wild Alaskan’s benefits package includes health, vision, and dental insurance, 401k, PTO, safe/sick time, vacation, parental leave and more, as well as a delicious box of free fish every month.