Overview

The Lead Producer is STN's expert in social-first production, responsible for ensuring every production is strategically planned, expertly executed, and delivered at the STN Standard of Excellence. This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on production execution.

The Role

This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on production execution, partnering across Creative, Social, Project Management, Client Success, and external production partners from ideation through final delivery. The Lead Producer brings production expertise into the creative process early, helping shape concepts, develop capture strategies, anticipate production needs, and determine the smartest and most effective way to bring ideas to life.

Beyond individual productions, the Lead Producer is responsible for elevating STN's overall production capabilities. This includes coaching and developing team members, improving processes and workflows, introducing new production approaches and technologies, and fostering stronger collaboration across departments.

The Lead Producer also brings a deep understanding of how audiences consume content across social platforms and applies that knowledge throughout the production process. They develop platform-informed capture strategies that account for hooks and visual hooks, framing, pacing, UI-safe composition, creator-inspired storytelling, and editorial flexibility. The goal is to ensure every production is designed not only to look great, but to generate the volume, variety, and flexibility of assets needed to perform across platforms.

What You'll Do

Production Strategy & Capture Development

1. Lead assigned productions from concept through final delivery by developing production plans, capture strategies, budgets, staffing recommendations, schedules, and logistics
2. Partner with Creative and Social to determine the strongest capture approach for every concept, factoring in platform behaviors, hooks, visual hooks, framing, pacing, and UI-safe composition
3. Bring production expertise into the creative process early, shaping concepts and identifying the smartest way to execute them
4. Generate and strengthen creative concepts that open new opportunities for clients and drive business growth through innovative production thinking

Onsite Leadership & Execution

1. Lead crews, manage production partners, and direct onsite execution while supporting talent
2. Create a calm, organized, solutions-oriented production environment that maintains exceptional client service under pressure
3. Personally produce assigned projects while providing strategic oversight on productions led by other producers, freelancers, or cross-functional teammates

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Client Management

1. Partner daily with Creative, Social, Project Management, and Client Success to align on production priorities, communicate tradeoffs, and proactively solve production challenges
2. Serve as STN's production expert in client meetings, pre-production planning, and production debriefs - communicating recommendations and setting expectations
3. Participate in ideation sessions, creative reviews, and pre-production calls to ensure concepts are executable while identifying opportunities to elevate creative through smarter capture approaches
4. Partner with leadership on production planning for pitches, estimates, staffing recommendations, and client presentations to support new business

Elevating Agency-Wide Production Capability

1. Review production plans and provide feedback to producers and cross-functional teammates to keep production standards consistent across projects
2. Develop documentation, playbooks, training materials, and AI workflows that improve how teams plan and execute productions
3. Build and maintain relationships with freelance crews, vendors, and production partners while identifying opportunities to expand STN's production offerings
4. Research emerging social trends, production technologies, platform updates, and creator behaviors to keep STN ahead of the curve

Who You Are

• 5+ years of experience in production or producing within an agency, sports, and/or live entertainment environment
• Deep understanding of how audiences consume content across social platforms (Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube) and how that shapes capture strategy
• Proven ability to lead productions onsite including managing crews, vendors, talent, and client expectations under real-time pressure
• Strong budgeting, staffing, and logistics planning skills across productions of varying scale
• Excellent client-facing communication and presentation skills
• Track record of coaching or mentoring other producers and cross-functional teammates
• Highly organized with strong systems-thinking and documentation habits
• Proactive in identifying production risks and solving problems before they escalate
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, reactive sports and entertainment environment where priorities shift quickly
• Passionate about sports and live entertainment content

What Success Looks Like

• Productions consistently launch on time, stay organized throughout execution, and meet or exceed STN's Standard of Excellence
• Output teams consistently receive platform-native content that maximizes creative flexibility and social performance
• Internal teams report clear communication, strong collaboration, and confidence throughout production
• Clients view STN's production expertise as a strategic advantage and consistently trust production recommendations
• Production processes become increasingly scalable, efficient, and consistently adopted across the organization
• STN maintains a best-in-class production network while continually evolving its production capabilities

Most Critical Outcome (MCO)

Deliver STN's Standard of Excellence across every production, from concept through delivery.

Job Details

• Location: San Diego, CA (Hybrid)
• Reports to: Sr. Creative Director
• Type: Full-Time
• Compensation: CA-based salary range is $87,600 - $110,000 + benefits. Actual compensation is dependent on experience, location and job-related qualifications and may vary for positions outside of California.

Education & Experience

• 5+ years of relevant experience in production or producing within an agency, sports, entertainment, or media environment
• Demonstrated experience managing production budgets, crews, and vendor relationships
• Strong working knowledge of social-first content capture and platform-native best practices
• Proficient use of production planning and project management tools
• Experience developing training materials, playbooks, or process documentation a plus
• Sports and livr entertainment industry experience strongly preferred

Physical Requirements

• Comfortable working in an office for 40 hours/week with the understanding that working within the sports and entertainment industry will require evening and/or weekend work
• Travel required

Department Creative Role Lead Producer Locations STN HQ 🐐 Remote status Hybrid