Growth Strategist (Paid Marketing).

About the role

Demand Curve is the growth agency for startups. Our clients work directly with a senior operator from day one through the life of the engagement. As a Growth Strategist (Paid Marketing), you’re that operator.

You’ll own the strategy, the relationship, and the results for your book of clients, end to end, with real ownership over how the engagement is run.

You’ll be supported by a Growth Engineer who handles execution (media buying, ad setup, automations), along with a creative strategist and additional cross-pod specialists, which frees you up to focus on the work that requires a senior operator: diagnosing what’s constraining a client’s growth, architecting paid engines, and building the kind of trust that keeps a client for years.

What you’ll own

• Strategy: Own each client’s growth strategy from onboarding through the full engagement, setting direction and keeping it moving forward.
• Diagnosis: Diagnose each client’s growth levers, including funnel economics, positioning, channel mix, and what’s working creatively, to determine where the real leverage is.
• The relationship: Client cadence, communication, and expectation-setting. You’re the senior voice they hear from throughout the engagement.
• Account growth: Identify and drive expansion and upsell opportunities across your book of clients.
• Execution oversight: Direct and review the work your Growth Engineer delivers (media buying, ad setup, campaign structure) without needing to run it yourself day-to-day.

What success looks like

• Your clients grow and know you’re why. You become the advisor they call before big decisions, not just the person running their channels.
• Your book compounds. Clients stay for years, expand, and refer.
• You earn more as you drive more growth, without the burnout agency life usually demands.
• The work stays sustainable: high standards and real autonomy, none of the churn.

Who we’re looking for

Required

• Deep expertise across the paid media umbrella, including account management, media buying strategy, budget/finance logic, and measurement. You should be able to direct and evaluate paid execution at an expert level.
• A track record of owning client relationships at a senior level, being the person clients call when something matters.
• Comfort operating with real autonomy in a book-ownership role.
• 8+ years of growth and/or paid marketing experience.

Strongly preferred

• Working knowledge of growth marketing beyond paid, including SEO, AI search/visibility, lifecycle, and landing page/CRO, enough to talk shop and recognize when a client’s real constraint sits outside paid.

Who tends to thrive here: senior operators who’ve already done the high-stakes tour, whether that’s the VC-backed startup grind or the founder-of-your-own-agency chapter, and are looking for craft and ownership as the next chapter. You want real autonomy and a team that has your back.

Compensation

• Base: $120k–$168k/year, depending on experience.
• Performance upside: Tied to client retention and growth of your book. Specific structure to be finalized during the offer process.

How we work

• Standing cadence with leadership, async-first otherwise.
• You’ll have a dedicated Growth Engineer supporting your book on execution.
• You’ll work alongside a creative strategist, who sets the foundational creative strategy you build on for your clients, plus cross-pod support from specialists as needed.