Head of Marketing & Communications

Head of Marketing & Communications (garden3d)

Make the internet worth reading. garden3d is hiring a Head of Marketing & Communications to shape how our work shows up online—across Substack, podcasts, social, websites, and experimental media—so every post, episode, and campaign feels compelling, high-quality, and unmistakably us.

You’ll be the person who turns studio activity into stories people actually want to follow. You’ll set the bar for quality, own our channels end-to-end, and help grow garden3d TK (our experimental media company) into a real publishing-and-media engine—while keeping the standards sharp across our house of brands.

About garden3d

garden3d is a worker-owned creative collective innovating across brands, IRL community spaces, IoT devices, and cross-platform apps. We share profit, open source everything, spin out new businesses, and invest in exciting ideas through financial and/or in-kind contributions.

Our client roster includes Google, Stripe, Figma, Hinge, Black Socialists in America, ACLU, Pratt, Parsons, Mozilla, The Nobel Prize, MIT, Gnosis, Etsy and Gagosian.

We’re also the software team behind innovative products like The Light Phone and Mill, and we operate a global, decentralized community space collective called Index Space.

We prioritize a happy, talented, diverse studio culture—balancing deep care for the work with real curiosity about life outside of jobs.

Our Studios (House of Brands)

• Sanctuary Computer — Development: A different kind of technology shop built on close client–craftsperson collaboration (websites, web apps, and native mobile).
• XXIX — Design: A design studio built around autonomy, growth, transparency, and shared responsibility.
• Index Space — Community: A network of physical spaces worldwide for exchanging knowledge and tools.
• USB Club — Digital Community: A digital community channel tied to launches, drops, and ongoing engagement.
• garden3d TK — Media: An early-stage experimental media company exploring emerging themes in technology, design, and culture—aiming to monetize through books, screenplays, and music (plus activations and more).
• garden3d (umbrella): The connective tissue—one coherent narrative across many distinct voices.

About the Role

The Head of Marketing & Communications has one mandate: make sure everything we put on the internet is compelling and interesting.

garden3d is a house of brands, and each vertical needs:

• Its own voice
• Its own audience
• A drumbeat of work worth sharing

Working closely with our founder & president Hugh Francis, you’ll decide what we make, where it runs, and whether it clears our bar.

Location: You can be based anywhere. Many of our studios, spaces, and people gravitate around New York, but we work across time zones and would happily hire in Europe, Singapore, Chicago, or wherever you are—if you’re the right person.

What You’ll Do

You’ll interface with studio leads, designers, developers, editors, animators, photographers, community managers, event producers, and ad platforms across every garden3d vertical. You’ll be able to smoothly context shift between workstreams, identify the most compelling stories, and get them produced at an exceptionally high bar.

This role owns our channels end-to-end, including:

• garden3d Substack
• Podcast
• Instagram
• X
• Paid accounts behind the channels

You’ll collaborate with internal teams and a rotating cast of freelance editors, designers, and animators. You’ll run the calendar that keeps multiple workstreams shipping on time—without sacrificing quality.

You’ll think in PESO terms (paid, earned, shared, owned), with the weight on shared and owned media. Paid is a tool you use deliberately. Traditional press is a bonus, not the main focus.

And your ambition doesn’t stop at marketing services. garden3d TK is our young experimental media company, and this role is its engine:

• Books
• Screenplays
• Music
• Media activations
• In effect: a record label for ideas

Responsibilities & Mandates

Quality never less than 8/10. We aspire to 10/10, celebrate 9/10, and never publish anything that’s not an 8/10—visually, narratively, and in production quality. You’ll hold that standard across every post, video, essay, and episode across all verticals.

• You’d rather kill a piece than let a “6” go out the door.
• Your feedback improves work faster and better—without micromanaging the people doing the creative work.

Social That Stops the Scroll. You’ll maintain a current, practitioner-level understanding of how platforms work right now:

• What arrests someone mid-scroll
• How a hook earns the next three seconds
• Why a format lands on TikTok and dies on LinkedIn
• How to treat short-form video as first-class craft (not an afterthought)

A House of Brands, Each in Its Own Voice.

• Sanctuary Computer doesn’t sound like XXIX—and neither sounds like Index.
• You’ll manage multiple messaging “columns” at once while keeping the umbrella story coherent.

Case Study Production (that wins the next project).

• Every client engagement should end in a case study worth reading.
• You’ll own the production line: interviewing the team, shaping narrative, art-directing assets, and shipping case studies that help each studio win its next project.

Websites That Put Our Best Foot Forward.

• You’ll own strategy behind every garden3d site—what it says, what work it shows, and how clearly it communicates each studio’s capabilities.
• You’ll keep sites, decks, and collateral current as the work evolves—so what people find is sharp and true.

Editorial Ownership. The Substack, the podcast, and transparency publications (like our open-source P&L release) are yours to run:

• Calendar and editorial standards
• Growth and iteration
• Capturing what happens in Index, USB Club, and surrounding communities
• Turning it into work worth sharing

Producing, Paid & Distribution—like a showrunner.

• You’ll direct producers, editors, and freelancers with clear briefs and real deadlines.
• Multiple workstreams move at once without dropping quality.
• You’ll run paid spend on Meta/Instagram (and wherever our audiences live), including audience building and A/B/C testing across narrative and ad sets.
• You’ll own budgets against results you can clearly show.

Data-Driven Reporting & ROI.

• Measure what content actually does: audience growth, engagement, leads, and pipeline influenced.
• Report plainly on paid spend, organic effort, and production time.
• Use results to shape next quarter’s plan.

Presence IRL. garden3d shows up in person—events, conferences, talks, Index programming, dinners, and openings.

• You’ll decide which touchpoints are worth the time
• Ensure we show up looking like ourselves
• Bring back stories worth publishing

Culture.

• Model garden3d values of partnership, curiosity, and accountability.
• Your team gets better work out of them because your feedback is honest, recognition is real, and taste is contagious.

Special Projects (potential future focus areas). In addition to day-to-day ownership, you may spearhead or support projects such as:

• Turning garden3d TK into a real experimental media brand (books, screenplays, music, and shows)
• Growing the podcast into a property with its own audience
• Launch campaigns for new Index spaces, USB Club drops, and community programs
• Making our annual open-source P&L release a media moment
• Standing up a small content studio that serves all four studios’ new-business pipelines
• Building the systems (and hiring the people) that let us publish more often—aspiring to 10/10 content, and never dropping below 8/10

What We’re Looking For

Must have

• 8+ years in marketing, content, or brand leadership, with real-time inside experience in creative studios, agencies, or founder-led companies
• A portfolio that proves exceptional taste—visual, narrative, and tone of voice
• Design background and/or fluency producing your own visual assets at the required quality level in Figma when needed
• Experience owning a company’s web presence: site strategy, messaging, and keeping capabilities collateral current
• Exceptional project management: content calendars, production pipelines, and multiple workstreams at once
• Short-form video fluency: shipped work for Reels, TikTok, and Shorts—and can explain why each piece performed
• Comfort managing creatives (editors, designers, animators, freelancers) and extracting better outcomes than they’d produce alone
• Hands-on paid social experience on Meta/Instagram and beyond: audience building, budget ownership, and A/B/C testing across narrative and ad sets
• Working fluency with PESO and a point of view on how paid/earned/shared/owned should earn their keep

Nice-to-have

• Experience producing a brand’s IRL presence: events, conferences, talks, and turning them into content
• Podcast/audio production experience
• Comfort managing multiple messaging columns in a house of brands
• Newsletter growth experience (especially Substack)
• Community & events marketing: programming, launches, IRL moments
• Photography, motion, or editing chops of your own
• Fluency with AI production tools + strong judgment on when not to use them
• A press/media network (traditional PR isn’t the focus, but relationships help)
• Experience marketing to design/engineering decision-makers
• Book publishing or long-form media experience
• Experience growing a services business story into a consumer-scale audience

Who You Are

• You’re happy, relaxed, and easy to work with.
• You value transparency and non-dictatorial leadership styles.
• You’re flexible on everything except conceits that lower quality.
• You work “smart” by carefully managing workflow and team.

Compensation

This role favors autonomous, competent, ambitious operators.

<ul