Project Manager – Design Agency

Overview

Highlights

• We work with social impact organizations focused on driving positive social change
• Long term commitment to a fully distributed team working from home
• We work a 4 day week – Enjoy 3 day weekends every week!
• 5 weeks off per year of paid vacation/holiday time

Us

Cosmic is a Social Impact Creative Agency. We empower social impact organizations to catalyze real world change by helping them nail their impact story, build brand awareness, and inspire action. We’re a distributed team with roots in Santa Cruz, CA. A bit about us:

• We are deeply committed to our mission to support social impact organizations working towards creating a more just and equitable world
• We’re a team of creatives, strategists, and technologists dedicated to exploring how digital experiences can spark real world change
• The project manager on our team is included in each project from early in the new business process to finish managing both our team and the relationship with our clients
• Each project is collaborative and includes the project manager, designer, content strategist, developer, and creative director
• We work a 4-day week and believe that good work is sustained through true work/life balance
• We are a fully distributed team working within the US with clients all over the world
• Our team has a broad spectrum of interests. Our culture is defined by an appreciation for social impact, and everything from good design, music, coffee to wrestling, pixel art, gaming, craft beer & food, outdoor adventure, amazing film & TV, and finding the perfect animated gif to express our thoughts
• We value impact, intention, innovation, integrity, balance, and empathy

You

• Project management is your jam, and you wouldn’t want to do anything else
• You love to collaborate with creatives and developers
• Have an innate sense of design thinking and appreciate well run systems
• The ability to both envision and plan a project from the meta view, while also being able to manage a dynamic, fast moving team. Which sometimes means getting down in the weeds.
• Have a clear, clean communication style that balances guiding the process and having empathy for both clients and the Cosmic team
• Understands that sometimes this is the first website or brand a client has done and you are excited to educate and lead our client’s team through a project
• Are excited to be involved in the strategic thinking and development of a project
• Enjoy learning quickly and diving deep into each client’s world to understand their niche in the social impact ecosystem and how they function within it
• You’re design, dev, marketing, communications, and tech savvy
• Relish the ability to shepherd a project from start to finish, while fostering collaboration between clients and Cosmic
• Two years relevant project management experience in an agency setting is a must. We are a strategy focused design agency shipping digital projects while evolving brands.
• Have a deep understanding of web based digital projects, including coordinating a team as they create site maps, information architectures, wireframes, content design for a project
• Have a good understanding of web development workflows and processes. Ability to help developers create epics, stories, organize project backlog and estimate development time
• Comfortable loading content into various CMS’s, leading the final QA process for digital projects, and coordinating website launches with the Cosmic team and our clients
• Clear, concise, friendly written and spoken communication skills are a must
• Experience managing a remote team while maintaining a sense of company culture. We function on a west coast (PST) time zone based schedule regardless of your personal location in the USA.
• Comfortable using and developing team usage protocols for project management, design, development, time management, and communication tools for a remote team
• A passion for social impact and an understanding of the social impact space is a definite plus
• You instinctively think ahead, adapt, and quickly problem solve, all while keeping your cool
• Flexibility and the ability to iterate and prioritize on a daily basis is key. We have a waterfall workflow with a fixed fee, fixed timeframe, and scope. We phase projects so that we can develop defined scopes as we move through each phase of a large engagement. The project manager’s role is to gently keep each part of the process moving.
• You’re exceptionally organized and enjoy being the point person for both the Cosmic and client teams.
• Able to put yourself in our client’s shoes and help bridge the conversation between the client’s team and the Cosmic team
• Working with clients who are on a mission to improve the world is the cherry on top

The Gig

We’re strategically sized and hyper-collaborative. For you, this means that this position extends far beyond traditional project management.

Your day-to-day would include:

Work with the Cosmic team to continue to evolve the Cosmic brand narrative and it’s presentation to clients, potential clients, and the social impact community. This position is one of the primary touch points of the brand with clients and the public.

Work with the Cosmic team to continue to maintain our waterfall workflow to produce strategy, design, content, development, photography and video deliverables. This includes:

• Having a meta-view of deliverables, team/client work styles, and an ability to play Tetris with all of the moving parts
• Support and participate in delivering strategy focused work for our clients
• Help to break the project up into smaller deliverables for weekly client sprints that are a combination of presentation and collaboration
• Keeping an eye toward producing amazing work that the team can stand behind while serving the client’s goals
• Participate in the creation of epics, and stories for websites and digital projects with the development team
• Build agendas and help lead team and client meetings

Lead the Cosmic client experience

• Onboarding of clients so that they understand their role in the creative process
• Continue to set expectations with the client throughout the course of the project
• Correspondence and communication with clients
• Maintain internal and external project management tools, while not letting the tools drive the process
• Coordination and collection of assets from clients and other vendors
• Calendaring of meetings, client deliverables, Cosmic deliverables, etc.
• Capture, document and communicate actionable tasks for both the client and Cosmic teams
• Handle small maintenance or website update projects with the client and the Cosmic team

Oversee the profitability of projects

• Participate in the scoping of projects during the sales process when needed
• Facilitating the balance of workflow within budget, timeframe, and scope, with an understanding that as a team there is always a need to push the cutting edge of design and technology
• Capture ideas for future phases of work with the client to support the sales process

Support Cosmic marketing efforts

• Coordinate asset creation for content marketing, email promotions, and social media marketing
• Coordinate the ongoing evolution of the Cosmic website and other brand assets
• Involved in coordination of guest podcast appearances, and internal podcasting projects
• Database and marketing tools management, list segmentation, and sending promotional emails
• Consistently keep each part of the process moving forward while knowing the rest of the Cosmic team will handle their part of the project
• Stay up to date on the technology and strategies used in donor engagement, social/civic engagement, sales processes, and emerging marketing trends that could support clients in the social impact digital space
• Continue to evolve as a thoughtful, empathetic project manager

Perks & Benefits

We welcome people from all walks of life, all genders and orientations, all religions and cultures, and all ethnicities. Staying true to our guiding principles, we promote acceptance, inclusion, and truth in all aspects of our business and encourage these values in our community.

• We work a 4-day work week (32-40 hours per week). Enjoy 3-day weekends every week!
• We are a fully distributed team
• 401k Plan + employer contributions after a year on the job
• 2 weeks paid vacation each year
• 5 days paid sick time each year
• 5 paid holidays each year, plus the Studio closes for the last 2.5 weeks of the year as an additional long paid holiday
• Join a humble, collaborative team

To Apply

Submit an application on the Cosmic website that includes a cover letter, resume, and link to your digital portfolio if you have one.