Director, Growth Marketing

About Calm

Calm is a leading consumer mental health company on a mission to support everyone on every step of their mental health journey. Known for its flagship consumer app—ranked #1 in its category with over 180 million downloads and availability in seven languages across 190 countries—Calm helps people sleep better, stress less, and live more mindfully through content and tools from experts and beloved celebrity voices. Building on this foundation, Calm has created a broader portfolio including evidence-based solutions like Calm Health, offered through employers, health plans and providers, designed to expand access to mental health and sleep support, boost benefits engagement, and drive positive health outcomes. Today, Calm supports more than 3,500 organizations and reaches over 17 million covered lives through Calm Health. Calm has been recognized as a TIME100 Most Influential Company and one of Fast Company’s Brands That Matter. Learn more at calm.com.

What We Do

As a member of the Growth Marketing team, you will get the chance to directly contribute to DTC growth at Calm. We are a small, hungry and humble team that looks for innovative ways to bring new users into the Calm App and to Calm.com. We combine data-driven strategy and creative problem solving to drive consumer growth across App, Web and Offline Marketing channels. We are always looking for new opportunities to optimize and scale new and existing ad networks and channels. We value a can-do attitude, data-driven decision-making, high EQ, cross-functional collaboration, resourcefulness, and curiosity.

We are hiring remote workers for this role in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, or Minneapolis areas. At this time, only candidates in these locations will be considered. 

Job Summary (What You’ll Do)
As the Director, Growth Marketing, you will be the principal architect of Calm’s user acquisition strategy. You will take ownership of our performance marketing engine, tasked with aggressively optimizing our current portfolio while simultaneously building the next generation of growth channels and tactics.

You will be responsible for building and managing acquisition budgets and targets for the growth marketing team, driving operational excellence to scale efficiently. In managing the budget, you will allocate media spend across various channels and track and report out on variance vs. actuals. You will need to be skilled at uncovering insights and trends, understanding the "whys" behind them, and translating those into actionable next steps.

This role encompasses end-to-end process ownership—from UA budget management and proactive pacing to reporting performance to key stakeholders. You don't need to be the one pushing the buttons, but you must understand the details deeply enough to guide the team. We are looking for someone who combines the vision of a director with the financial and technical depth of a practitioner to lower CAC and scale revenue.

• Campaign Strategy & Architecture: Own the high-level strategy and structure of Calm’s paid acquisition portfolio (Social, Search, ASA, UAC, TV/OTT, Audio). You will guide the team on technical best practices and ensure our media buying strategy is optimized for efficiency and scale.
• Financial Forecasting & Budget Management: Partner closely with Finance to build and manage acquisition budgets. You will lead the regular pacing process, allocate media budgets across channels, and meticulously track variance vs. actuals to ensure we deliver on business targets with high financial accuracy.
• Uncover Trends & Drive Action: You won't just report the numbers; you will explain them. You are responsible for uncovering insights, understanding the "whys" behind performance shifts, and translating those trends into actionable next steps for the team to execute.
• Drive Innovation & "Net New" Growth: Identify and pilot the next generation of growth tactics—whether that’s unlocking a new bidding strategy, testing a radical new creative format, or launching a completely new channel (e.g., CTV). You will move these from experimental pilots to core revenue drivers.
• Active Team Leadership: Lead a hybrid team of in-house marketers and external agencies. You will drive performance by setting clear standards, fostering a culture of rapid iteration, and ensuring partners are held accountable to strict KPIs.
• Product & Funnel Collaboration: Drive conversion beyond the ad click. Partner with Product and Engineering to execute landing page tests and onboarding improvements that increase downstream retention and LTV.
• Creative Velocity & Innovation: Work with Creative Strategists to build a high-volume testing framework. Drive the adoption of AI and automation tools to increase our creative output, ensuring we have the asset density required to combat ad fatigue and lower costs.

Skills and Qualifications (Who You Are)

• Operational Growth Leader: 6+ years in performance marketing with a history of driving results. You understand the nuances of the platforms deeply enough to challenge agencies and mentor your team on technical strategy.
• Financial Fluency: Proven success managing 8-figure paid media budgets. You have an in-depth understanding of media math, forecasting, and how marketing efficiency (variance, pacing, ROI) impacts the broader business model.
• Proven Builder: You have a track record of building initiatives from scratch. You can point to specific tactics, channels, or markets that did not exist before you arrived, which you successfully scaled to maturity.
• Platform Mastery: You possess a deep technical understanding of major ad platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok, etc.). You know how the algorithms work and can diagnose why a strategy is succeeding or failing without needing to be hands-on in the interface daily.
• DTC Experience: Deep experience managing both in-house teams and external agencies in a subscription or app environment.
• Technical & Analytical: Strong understanding of measurement (incrementality, MMM, LTV/CAC) and full-funnel performance tracking. You use data to invalidate assumptions and uncover value.
• Process Architect: You can build workflows that help teams run faster. You are comfortable identifying and implementing technology solutions (including AI tools) to automate manual work and improve data accuracy.

Nice to Haves

• Experience taking a specific growth initiative from "Zero to One" (e.g., launching a new international market or a new product vertical).
• Experience with SQL or data visualization tools (Tableau, Looker)..

Minimum Requirements

• 8+ years in acquisition or performance marketing roles, with deep experience managing paid channels in-house
• Proven success managing 8-figure paid media budgets across multiple channels.
• This requires an in-depth understanding of media strategy, cross-channel planning, and the intricacies of online and offline media activation and campaign performance analysis
• Effective and efficient project management– meeting project timelines and managing expectations across a variety of stakeholders
• Possesses and displays a deep understanding of media – strategy, media math, plan development, channel dynamics, etc
• Strong financial acumen - understanding how marketing output directly ties to financial plans and forecasting. Able to work proficient with finance team counterpart
• Proven experience mentoring and growing high-performing, independent teams with a strong culture of experimentation and learning

Calm uses a geographic pay model that determines salaries based on the location where an employee lives. For this position, the base pay ranges across Calm’s pay tiers is as follows:

$194,400  - $279,000

The base pay range represents the low and high end of Calm’s salary range for this position. Not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range. Exact salary will ultimately depend on multiple factors, which include the successful candidate's geographic location, skills, experience and other qualifications.

Calm uses employee zip code to determine which pay range applies.

This role is also eligible for equity + comprehensive benefits + 401k + flexible time off.

Calm may incorporate artificial intelligence technology to support the application review process, but rest assured that human reviewers are involved in all stages of the hiring process.

Calm is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities, including disabled veterans. If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application or interview process, please contact Calm’s Recruiting team at recruitingaccommodations@calm.com. All accommodation requests will be handled confidentially and assessed on a case-by-case basis.

We believe that mental health is health, and every person should be considered in the discussion. That’s why we’re proud to be an equal opportunity workplace, committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law.

Calm is deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We strive to create a mindful and respectful environment where everyone can bring their authentic self to work, and experience a culture that is free of harassment, racism, and discrimination.

Employment offers are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. Roles which require access to certain types of information may also require the successful completion of a drug screening.

FOR US BASED POSITIONS: Calm participates in e-verify. E-verify provides the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.

• Right to Work
• E-Verify Participation