Responsibilities

• 1. Topic Strategy and Channel Routing - Find, evaluate, and greenlight every topic. Each one passes three tests: is there real depth here (enough verified material for a full ladder), does the surface level pull a click from someone who has never heard of us, and does the descent go somewhere the audience cannot easily find on their own. All three must be yes.
• - Route each topic by territory. Lost footage, internet mysteries, and strange accounts to Abyssal Detective. Film, television, and entertainment to Abyssal Observer. Disasters, accidents, and last moments to Abyssal Detective 2.
• - Decide which series earn a next volume and which are exhausted, and keep all three territories fed through a monthly portfolio review.
• 2. Story Architecture and Production Direction - Build the level ladder before a script exists: how many levels, what defines each one. Ordering is about escalation, not about which entry is most graphic. Escalation in our structure means that every single segment needs to be objectively more disturbing than the one before it.
• - Brief the team members against the ladder and the creative vision, then review the intro/hook. Does the intro promise a real descent inside 60 seconds, does every level earn its place, is the tone restrained where the material is heaviest. Did the whole video actually execute the creative vision planned for that specific video?
• 3. Accuracy and Editorial Standards - Be the verification gate. Every segment traces to a real source: reporting, court and inquest records, accident and safety investigations, archives, trade and broadcast records, or footage with a traceable origin. Anything unverified is cut or labelled as unverified inside the video.
• - Own the line on real people. Abyssal Detective 2 deals with real deaths, named victims, and families who are still alive. You decide what is shown, what is only described, which recent tragedies we avoid entirely, and how final moments are handled. Written down, applied consistently.
• - Own the monetization call: how a heavy entry gets covered, what leaves the YouTube cut for Patreon, and when a topic is not worth the risk at all.
• 4. Packaging Coordination - You own the title and the promise, locked before the script is written. The senior packaging designer owns the thumbnail, its visual direction, and the testing.
• - Brief them on the angle and what the video is actually selling, then give creative input on their concepts. Your review question is one thing: does this packaging promise the video we are making?

Requirements

• Demonstrated understanding of YouTube content strategy: topic selection, title and thumbnail packaging, retention on long-form video, and what separates a video that performs from one that does not.
• Strong editorial instinct for escalation and pacing. This format lives or dies on whether the descent feels real. You need to be able to feel when a level is out of order.
• Obsessive attention to factual accuracy, and the discipline to cut or label anything you cannot source.
• Working knowledge of YouTube's advertiser friendly guidelines, plus practical experience keeping sensitive content monetized.
• Ability to read channel analytics (CTR, impressions, retention curves, audience retention by segment) well enough to judge what a video actually taught you.
• Comfort working with primary material: accident and safety investigation reports, inquest and court records, archive catalogues, broadcast and film records, and footage of uncertain origin that has to be traced.
• Ability to run a pipeline at volume (8 videos per month across three channels) without quality degrading. Systems thinking, not just creative instinct.
• Ability to direct writers, researchers, editors, and designers, and to give notes that are specific enough to act on.
• Self-directed. You receive the brand bible, the team, and the tools. You drive the pipeline independently.
• Proactive growth mindset. Be proactive and obsessed with self-improvement, pushing to get better each day.

Preferred

• Lost media or internet mystery research background or interest: archive digging, reverse image and footage tracing, following a thread across dead forums and dead links
• Genuine familiarity with the iceberg format and the channels that do it well.
• Background in data-driven YouTube strategy: topic mining, outlier identification, format testing.

Benefits

• Real room to grow into Senior Creative Strategist. This is not a static seat. Prove the pipeline on the Abyssal Network and your scope widens: more channels, other NIA properties, and eventually direction over other strategists. Compensation moves with scope, not with time served.
• Access to our paid learning library. We invest in the best material available and give the team access to it. That currently includes Paddy Galloway's YouTube strategy program, writing and storytelling material from George Blackman, work from Colin and Samir, and more that we add as we find it. If it will make you better, we buy it.
• A team that already operates at scale. 100+ people, channels across many niches, and colleagues who have already solved the problem you are stuck on. You report directly to the COO, so decisions happen fast and you are not managing upward through three layers.
• Ownership, not order-taking. The topic, the story, and the standard are yours. Very few YouTube roles hand someone this much creative control this early.