Contract: Part-time (20-hours per week), 1 year contract (with potential to full-time and to extend)

Start date: October 2026

Location: US-based, remote, with adaptability to work with both US East and West coast team members

Work hours: Flexible schedule with regular awareness of engagement needs outside standard business hours. While not expected to be online at all times, this role requires the ability to stay abreast of social channels, identify emerging trends, and support key events and milestones that may occur during evenings and weekends.

At Santa Barbara Games, we're a small indie studio developing Voidwood, a stylized, 1-4 player co-op, session-based survival roguelite set in a dark, mystical forest launching on Steam in 2027.

We're looking for a Content & Social Manager who can drive engagement and excitement for a new game from the ground up and turn content into entertainment. You'll be growing excitement before launch, maintaining meaningful interest after launch, and creating content players want to share and react to.

You'll be equally comfortable creating multiple formats of social content from gameplay footage, marketing materials, and user-generated content, and be helping shape the public voice of the studio as we take our first title from announce to launch.

You'll work closely with the Marketing Manager, Creative Director, Executive Producer, and development team to ensure we build excitement for the game, key aspects of the game are well understood, and our audience feels connected to the journey of the game.

What you’ll do

• Build and grow our social presence: Own the day-to-day operations of the studio's player-facing social channels and develop a consistent publishing cadence while continuously testing formats, concepts, hooks, and platforms to meaningfully grow the audience for Voidwood
• Find the story in the game: Proactively identify gameplay moments, development stories, player reactions, features, art, and team activity that can become compelling content rather than relying solely on content provided by the team
• Create compelling game content: Create, capture, edit, and package static, interactive, and short-form content for platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube leveraging gameplay, behind-the-scenes moments, developer updates, event coverage, and community content
• Plan and execute social campaigns: Develop content calendars and campaigns that support key milestones including announcements, playtests, Steam events, trailers, launch, patches, and content updates
• Turn one asset into many: Systematically repurpose trailers, gameplay footage, developer interviews, creator coverage, events, and major announcements into platform-native content across multiple channels
• Experiment and optimize: Track content performance, identify patterns in what resonates, develop hypotheses, and continuously iterate on topics, formats, hooks, creative, timing, and distribution
• Support live content and events: Help plan and execute livestreams and player-facing content around key moments such as playtests, Steam events, developer updates, creator collaborations, and launch
• Measure contribution to growth: Use attribution, UTMs, platform analytics, and other available data to understand how organic content contributes to Steam traffic, wishlists, followers, playtest participation, and overall audience growth
• Support partner relationships: Support content made by partners, creators, and streamers to help amplify authentic player and advocate voices across our social channels
• Leverage AI to scale impact: Use AI-powered tools to improve productivity across content creation, research, reporting, and workflow automation.

What success looks like

• Meaningful, sustained audience growth across priority social platforms
• Consistent delivery of a high-quality content cadence without requiring significant day-to-day direction
• Increasing organic reach, views, engagement, and qualified traffic over time
• A growing percentage of content that meaningfully outperforms established channel benchmarks
• Organic content that demonstrably contributes to Steam traffic, wishlists, follows, playtest registrations, and community growth
• Regular experimentation with new formats, creative concepts, hooks, and platforms, with learnings incorporated into future content
• Major game, marketing, and event moments are consistently turned into multiple pieces of platform-native content rather than treated as one-time posts
• A recognizable and authentic voice for Voidwood and Santa Barbara Games across channels
• Consistent devlogs, Steam updates, and longer-form content that keeps highly engaged players connected to development
• Clear monthly reporting on what worked, what didn't, why, and what will change as a result
• Strong collaboration with the Marketing Manager, Community Manager, development team, creators, and external partners

About you

You're passionate about games that resonate with players. You enjoy creating spaces where players feel excited to participate through creating content that sparks engagement.

• You love games and understand what motivates players to engage, contribute, and advocate for the communities they join
• You've built strong followings on multiple social media platforms
• You're comfortable working hands-on with gameplay footage, video editing, images, copy, and platform-native creative rather than primarily managing other people who create content
• You've created engaging social content for gaming audiences and understand how to capture opportunities, trends, and gameplay moments that resonate with players
• You have strong creative judgment and can quickly distinguish between content that is technically polished and content that people will actually want to watch
• You understand the unique content dynamics of platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit
• You're an excellent written and spoken communicator with a strong understanding of online culture and gaming audiences
• You don't wait for a content brief. You proactively find stories, gameplay moments, trends, development milestones, and opportunities worth turning into content
• You actively embrace AI as a force multiplier, you're comfortable using AI tools to increase efficiency and scale your impact while maintaining quality, authenticity, and player trust
• You're highly organized, adaptable, and comfortable wearing multiple hats in a small, fast-moving team

Nice to have

• Experience during pre-launch of games on Steam
• Experience working on survival, roguelite, horror, and/or co-op games
• Experience managing creator-generated content programs and user-generated content campaigns
• Experience attending or representing games at events such as PAX, GDC, TwitchCon, or Steam Next Fest

At Santa Barbara Games, we're a small team of core players building worlds we want to explore ourselves. If you love bringing players together, creating memorable communities, and helping shape the relationship between a game and its audience, we'd love to meet you!