Associate Director of Search Experience

Who We Are: Power Digital is an AI-Native Growth Firm built at the intersection of world-class talent and proprietary technology. We help leading and emerging brands grow by combining deep vertical expertise, strategic thinking, and enterprise intelligence to drive measurable business outcomes. For more than a decade, we have built our business around one belief: the best technology makes great people better. Our teams of strategists, creatives, analysts, and technologists use Omega, our AI operating system, to surface opportunities faster, investigate what is driving performance, and execute approved work with greater speed and precision. Behind Omega is Iris, our proprietary intelligence layer, built on years of real performance data, strategic frameworks, testing, and learnings from across our client portfolio. AI expands the capacity of our people to think, create, solve harder problems, and make better decisions. Human judgment, creativity, and accountability remain central to how we work.  As a people-first firm, we value diversity in backgrounds and experiences. We strongly believe our people and culture are key to our success. We partner closely with our clients as an extension of their teams, working across strategy, execution, and measurement to identify what is truly blocking growth and determine what to do next. Our culture is built on people who are curious, ambitious, accountable, and committed to delivering meaningful results for our clients and for one another. At Power Digital, we believe the future belongs to teams that combine the best talent with the best technology. We are building that future today. ***Proficiency in spoken and written English at an advanced level is required for this role. A day in the life: As the Associate Director of Search Experience, you are a player-coach leader who owns two things above all else: the people on your pod, and the quality of the work that pod produces. You are the person whose judgment, craft, and consistency has earned the genuine trust of the people you lead. You lead from the front, capable of sitting in a new business pitch or an existing client meeting and speaking to Search Experience strategy directly, while also being capable of stepping into execution when needed and doing it at an exemplary standard. You ask nothing of your team that you wouldn't do yourself. You oversee a pod of search experience professionals, directly managing specialists through senior strategists while providing strategic guidance that drives team growth, retention, and exceptional client outcomes. You are hands-on in ensuring client satisfaction, serving as the first point of escalation, and contributing to high-level Search Experience strategy spanning SEO, GEO/AEO, and content. Beyond client delivery, you champion the evolution of the Search Experience product offering, staying ahead of AI search behaviors and generative search platform changes and ensuring your pod is fluent and prepared. As an AI-Native Channel Architect, you treat Claude, Omega, Iris, and the broader Nova ecosystem as core to how the work gets done, automating repetitive analysis so your time goes toward judgment, strategy, and client relationships. You are on the roadmap to Director, using this role to build the people leadership, product judgment, and cross-functional fluency that role demands. Key Responsibilities: Team Leadership & Development Lead and manage a pod of search experience professionals, including 2-4 direct reports from specialist to senior strategist level. Build and maintain individual development plans, coaching cadences, and mentorship for every member of the pod. Own team retention via positive team sentiment and clear paths for growth. Drive performance management using the ARC framework (Activities, Resources, Capabilities). Diagnose underperformance quickly and accurately, deliver timely and direct feedback as well as raise and promotion recommendations. Oversee capacity planning and staffing for search experience pod. Generate innovation and foster team training and development (i.e new product updates, channel knowledge, etc) in conjunction with R&D team. Client Oversight & Strategy Provide executive-level oversight for client accounts within the pod, including direct, hands-on support and/or act as an Account Director. Serve as the first point of escalation for client concerns, offering strategic guidance and resolving issues with a solutions-first mindset. Support high-level strategy development, performance tracking, and internal audit requests to ensure exceptional delivery. Track client churn and churn trends within the pod's book of business, and intervene early where risk signals appear. New Business & Growth Contribute to new business efforts by supporting audits, pitches, and opportunity identification. Develop compelling case studies to highlight team and client successes. Identify and act on key areas of opportunity for service expansions within the book of business. Product Innovation & Quality Own product quality for the pod through consistent, accountable QA processes that catch errors before they become client-facing or revenue-impacting. Proactively pursue Search Experience channel evolution outside of day-to-day client work, including reading industry sources, pursuing certifications, and running informal experiments on GEO/AEO and AI search. Centralize learnings from the pod's tests and share them with the division. Lead knowledge-sharing initiatives and quarterly brainstorms to push the Search Experience product forward. Use Claude, Omega, Iris, and Nova tools daily to automate repetitive search analysis (rank tracking, GEO/AEO visibility monitoring, reporting, QA checks), freeing time for strategic judgment and client relationships. Maintain full working knowledge of the Power Circuit and Nova ecosystem, and drive completion and adoption across the pod. Re