Managing Editor

About the team

Helpful is a well-funded online media startup. We"re building a publishing platform to power a collection of consumer advocacy web properties with dynamic comparison features. Our editorial team is a small group of freelance writers so far, but we plan to add 2 in-house writers, a total of 4-5 freelancers, and an assigning editor this year, with plans to scale to multiple websites and 20-30 editorial team members over the course of a few years. This role will report to our VP of Content and Creative, Vilja Johnson (LinkedIn profile).

About the job

We"re in the exciting, initial phase of building our editorial content, and we"re looking for an experienced manager with strong strategic thinking and an eye for quality to oversee our editorial team. As our first managing editor, you"ll have significant influence on early decisions and play an important role in scaling the content to handle our initial site launch this year.

Here"s what you"d be working on:

• Recruit, hire, and train a team of writers and editors, both freelance and in-house
• Provide candid, constructive, and timely feedback and oversee career growth of editorial team
• Coach writers and editors on craft as well as strategic and soft skills
• Keep a pulse on employee sentiment and use insights to improve the employee experience and operational excellence of the department
• With input from SEO and subject-matter experts, create an editorial plan that, above all else, helps readers while meeting business goals
• Collaborate with social, outreach, email, and video teams to create cohesive content across channels
• Document content quality guidelines and a process to review quality, and maintain quality standards through documentation and coaching
• Collaborate on research methodology, editorial strategy, and an editorial vision for your team
• Be an integral part of helping create editorial processes and best practices
• Outline editorial objectives on a quarterly basis and hold self and team accountable for their completion
• Perform competitive analysis, and make content recommendations based on competitive research
• Use reports and data to surface opportunities to improve our editorial content
• As needed, help edit and publish content
• Develop trusting, deep partnerships with cross-functional peers