CC: Product managers for avatar artists, music/podcast politics, ecommerce services, and more

By: Brooke JacksonDeclan McGlynn

Published: 2022-09-22

CC: (“Career Connections”) is a new, collaborative editorial vertical about the future of work in the music business. On a biweekly basis, our research team highlights the most interesting jobs emerging in music — “interesting” defined as involving new technologies, skill sets, strategic priorities, and cross-industry synergies like in gaming, fitness, and podcasts — as a vector for charting potential futures for the music industry as a whole. We compile the jobs we feature in a spreadsheet, which you can view here.

Why look at jobs as a source of data? By watching employment activity, we can uncover the strategic directions and macro-level trends behind a variety of companies around music and tech. Sometimes we spot new departments and verticals for music companies, and other times we see new music- and audio-related job postings for companies not historically associated with these areas. This view offers a unique glimpse into what is coming ahead for the music and tech industries at large, while also offering actionable guidance around the kinds of skills and experiences that are increasingly in demand for music/tech careers.

As a community benefit, CC: will also round up new opportunities for work, collaboration, and funding being shared within the Water & Music network of music/tech innovators and entrepreneurs. You can view the full feed of our community-curated opportunities in the #asks and #jobs-funding channels in our Discord server, and/or suggest interesting hiring trends for us to highlight in this planning thread in Discord.

Help us with this newsletter! We are seeking Water & Music community members to help this series in various ways. If you have any interest in helping to write this newsletter,curating the interesting jobs database, or in supporting a sponsored jobs board, please reach out to Cherie Hu or Brooke Jackson on our team!

Labels and DSPS still chasing after Spotify’s podcast dominance

Relevant recent job postings:

Spotify’s push into podcasts has been going for a few years now, and they continue to recruit new roles for the format, including recent posts for a Data Science Manager for Podcast Content and Monetisation and for a Senior Associate, Podcaster and Talk Support. Most notably, the company posted a new listing for Growth Manager – Audiobooks and Gated Content, with a key sentence as part of its pitch to potential new employees: “In the coming years, Spotify will redefine what it means for creators to monetize their work, as well as how listeners discover and gain access to that paid content.”

This language hints at a new, more dynamic streaming model in the near future for both listeners and creators — even though the role’s bold claims focus primarily on “Podcast Subscriptions, Audiobooks, and Spotify Open Access,” and doesn’t mention music at all. In fact, the role follows off the back of the news this week that Spotify is now selling audiobooks, a radical shift from its dual freemium and premium subscription model. (Spotify already offers an incremental, direct-to-creator subscription option for podcasts through their app Anchor; though they currently take no commission, that will change in 2023, when they will take 5%.)

At large, Spotify has already invested over $1B in podcasting tech and content, in an attempt to achieve profitability and rely less on major-label rights holders. In fact, from a careers perspective, perhaps the more interesting story isn’t merely that Spotify is expanding their podcast teams — it’s also that this growing non-music push continues to influence hiring across the music business.

We’re seeing this political game play out in job openings across the industry— particularly at major labels that want to retain leverage against the streaming giant, and at other competing streaming platforms that are looking to catch up. For instance, Warner Music Group’s own Interval Presents, a newly formed in-house podcasting network announced in April 2022, is hiring a Podcasts Operation Manager. Sony Music’s own in-house podcasting network Somethin’ Else, acquired in 2021, is also hiring a Senior Producer for Entertainment Podcasts.

Amazon’s Amp, a “live radio” platform launched in March 2022, is recruiting some key roles including Creator Community Training and Education Manager and Principal, Creator Acquisition. Social audio has had a rocky few years with the hype and downfall of apps like Clubhouse, and Amp is still in its relative infancy, currently in beta and US-only. Though the job ads hint at a big future, with the Creator Acquisition role requiring eight-plus years of experience and asking applicants to “come make history.” Both roles also hint at a scaling platform looking to acquire and assist exclusive talent, a rather traditional Hollywood-esque model to product growth that Spotify has also been attempting for the past few years.

Leaning on gaming data for music growth

Relevant recent job postings:

Since the last issue of CC, we’ve spotted several new roles specifically at the intersection of music and gaming, suggesting that both major music companies and emerging music startups are starting to take commercial growth opportunities in gaming more seriously.

In the direction of music companies expanding into games, Amazon Music was recently hiring a Business Development role specifically for gaming — covering “distribution, marketing, content, artist and/or product/technology components” of expanding the streaming service’s reach among gamer demographics. This is a lagging indicator of a product synergy that has existed for a while, with Spotify reporting significant growth early on in total listening time through gaming consoles (81% year-over-year in 2020).

In the other direction, Riot Games is hiring for several interesting music roles, including a Music Supervisor for their Esports division and a dedicated Product Manager for K/DA, their K-pop-inspired avatar group. Originally launched in 2018, K/DA has racked up millions of views and listens, even hitting the number-one spot in the iTunes K-pop chart. The new Product Manager role for the group will “drive strategy, creative execution, and delivery of long-term strategy, franchise planning, IP expansion, and artist development within the K/DA universe.”

The framing of an avatar group as a “franchise” business is telling, and reveals how Riot is going all-in on expanding the storytelling universe around K/DA. In addition, from a business and data perspective, Riot owns both the artists themselves and the platforms they inhabit, and has the primary goal of serving their player base. As the Product Manager job role stipulates: “You will engage deeply with the community and player data to ensure that the team is delivering resonant content, maintaining a singular focus on providing the best possible player experience.”

Developing an artist strategy based on player data and player experience is a unique prospect, and it’ll be interesting to see how K/DA’s continued development influences other music-industry strategies as the gaming space expands. One company leading that expansion is Pixelynx. Founded by electronic music icons Richie Hawtin and Deadmau5, the new team claims to be “building technology and acquiring equity in a range of startups that will form the foundation of how music is experienced in the metaverse.” With recent roles including Level Designer and Unreal Tech Lead, among others, it seems that the core building blocks of the musical metaverse’s much-hyped new frontier — and the resulting skill sets required to build on those blocks — seem to be identical to gaming’s core tools.

Big-tech investments in e-commerce services for artists

Relevant recent job postings:

Merchandise is of course a well-established revenue source for music artists and labels, and there are dozens of music merch/e-commerce companies already offering these services. We previously reported on the rapid rise in investments in direct-to-fan tools for artists throughout the pandemic, with companies forming to create services like those of Cameo and pearpop for personalized content, as well as startups like With the Band that offer a more wide-ranging “modern-day version of a fan club.”

Beyond startups, we’re now seeing more big-tech platforms like Amazon and TikTok investing more deeply in ecommerce as a value-added offering to potential artist partners. Amazon Music is showing an expansive strategic offering around Live Event Merchandising in particular, hoping to make music a core pillar in the parent company’s existing e-commerce dominance. Responsibilities for a Senior Manager job listing for the department (which is no longer active) include innovating “all systems and processes for selling merch virtually, and for pop-up events…. for overseeing all aspects of the livestream & live event revenue streams… using Amazon’s infrastructure.”

While TikTok’s E-Commerce department has reportedly opted out of expanding its QVC-style live e-commerce “TikTok shop” in the US, it still appears to be hiring for the department, consistently focusing on bringing on brands that align with creator content produced on their platform. This job posting for a Senior Manager role in Los Angeles calls out responsibilities specifically around TikTok Shopping — saying the candidate will be working with a cross-functional team on merchandise and assortment strategy, external brand partnerships, and live shop production strategy, including training, host casting, and experience in product sales.

On the other side of the merch-music equation, we spotted this job posting from retailer Urban Outfitters for a contract-basis Music Booking & Curator under its music division. The position will be responsible for music partnerships and booking in-store performances and finding “music influencers & talent” as part of the company’s PR, brand, and marketing team initiatives, and is responsible for spotting trends in lifestyle and culture.

Other interesting jobs we’ve spotted

Sotheby’s is hiring a Specialist, Popular Culture (Music & Film) in New York. The classic luxury art auction house has been, perhaps surprisingly, active in modern technology trends, including as a marketplace for high-priced one-of-one NFT sales including the $927K sale of Don Diablo’s Infinite Future and Jay-Z’s Heir to the Throne. This role will be a part of Sotheby’s new Science & Popular Culture Department (started in 2021), which houses the miscellaneous items where Science & Art meet and that don’t fit in their other auction categories. They are looking for a person with experience in and enthusiasm for a wide range of subjects, including: Popular Music (Hip-Hop, Punk, Rock, Electronic), film, cultural movements, collectibles, Space Exploration, Science, Technology, and Natural History (including fossils, meteorites, minerals), and experience and/or familiarity with NFTs.

The Orchard (under Sony Music) is hiring an Associate Director, Voice Operations & Optimization within the Voice Lab division. This distribution company has been touting their focus on cutting-edge technology as part of their value proposition. This role is focused on driving their “voice optimization initiative” with responsibilities including analysis and reporting of voice performance metrics. Voice consumption, as it is stated in this job description, is a growing area of the music business, and is going to be an area to watch in the coming months and years.

In a different realm of the music business we spotted an interesting job posted from the concert promoter giant AEG: The company ishiring for a Senior Manager, Live Events, Sustainability, with the role focusing on sustainability initiatives in its touring, festivals, and venues divisions. They are looking for someone with experience in “environmental programs, impacts, and topic areas, including energy, waste, water, materials, procurement,” and knowledge of the “core principles of sustainability, understanding of and ability to measure environmental impacts, and familiarity with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.” With the recent Ethereum merge taking some of the heat off the criticism from musicians around the environmental impact of crypto/Web3 — while at the same time the world is literally warming up — it will be interesting to see whether more of the live music and touring industry will be focusing on environmental sustainability in operations, and whether it will be as a PR push or an operational necessity.

Community opportunities

The following job opportunities were posted by Water & Music members in the #jobs channel in our Discord server from September 7 – 20, 2022. If you’d like to share a job opportunity with our community, please hop into that channel and we’ll make sure to include it in our next digest. (Please note this is NOT sponsored — just community members helping each other out!)

Other resources

There are many other active music-industry job boards elsewhere online that we’d love to shout out as additional resources and inspiration for our community:

Read more and join the discussion: