Brand Manager

$110,000 – $130,000 per year, plus a benefits package worth $19,000–$24,000 annually. Total target compensation: approximately $129,000 – $154,000

Reports to: VP of Revenue Operations | Location: Gillette, WY (On-site or Hybrid for the right candidate)
Full-time

Job Overview

Western Welding Academy is on a mission to build a better generation of blue-collar craftsmen. We forge the next generation of skilled welders through an unwavering commitment to work ethic, accountability, and integrity — focusing on student outcomes and hands-on training in a real-world environment that prepares them to exceed the demands of the industry.

We believe in this mission because blue-collar tradespeople are the backbone of America. This country was built by skilled workers, and yet for too long we've pushed every young person toward college and left the trades underappreciated. Now manufacturing is returning to American soil and the demand for welders is skyrocketing, while the skilled workforce to meet it doesn't exist. We're filling that gap, one welder at a time, because the future of this country depends on the hands of those willing to build it.

Applicants must already be legally authorized to work in the United States. Western Welding Academy does not sponsor work visas or offer employment-based immigration support.

Most brand or marketing leadership roles ask you to defend a number that doesn't actually matter — followers, impressions, views. This one doesn't. We measure content on whether it produces the right students, and you'll be the one who sets that standard and holds the department to it.

We already have a videographer/editor on the floor capturing what happens here every day — a student's first arc, the test they were sure they'd fail, the day they graduate. What we don't have yet is someone who turns that raw material into a system: a defined Avatar, a working KPI scorecard, a hiring bar, and a content engine that compounds instead of starting over every week. That's you!

You'll report to our VP of Revenue Operations, which means the content you build is never disconnected from what Admissions actually needs. You'll be the first hire into a marketing function we are deliberately rebuilding — which means you set the bar for who comes in after you.

Here's what's in it for you: Your pay is only part of the picture. As a full-time team member, here's the real value of working at Western Welding Academy:

• Free medical option. Our Cigna HDHP plan is 100% company-paid for you and your family — $0 premium out of your paycheck. It's a high-deductible plan ($4,000 individual / $8,000 family) paired with an HSA.
• Money toward your health costs. Choose the HDHP and we add $1,000 a year to your Health Savings Account.
• Company-paid life insurance. $75,000 in coverage at no cost to you.
• 401(k) with a match. We match up to 3.5% of your pay to help you build for the future.
• Dental and vision coverage through Principal at a low monthly cost.
• Unlimited PTO from your very first day. No accrual, no waiting period — just plan ahead with your manager.
• Real hiring authority. You're building this department's bar, not filling a seat inside someone else's.
• A mission that matters. Your work helps put people into life-changing careers and helps rebuild America's skilled workforce, one welder at a time.

• Own the Avatar. Make sure we actually know exactly who we're for — mine sales-call transcripts into a living Why People Buy document, keep it refreshed monthly, and make sure every hook, script and ad traces back to it.
• Run the department on saves, not views. Set and defend the KPI scorecard. Review content against lead quality every month, and adjust the content — not the sales team — when the wrong applicants start showing up.
• Build the organic-to-paid flywheel. Push posting volume, find the outliers that clearly win, and make sure every paid ad is built from proven organic — not new footage shot specifically for ads.
• Architect content around one big idea. Keep everything we publish traceable to the mission and a defined set of supporting reasons — not whatever's trending that week.
• Hire the department's A-players. You're the first hire into this function and you build the bar for everyone who comes in behind you. Screen for critical thinking and coachability, and apply a simple filter: would we hire ten of this person?
• Manage and grow our videographer/editor. Set the shoot calendar, run the lifecycle-ad sequence, and own the monthly batch shoot that feeds the whole content pipeline.
• Partner with Revenue on the lead-scoring loop. Make sure lead quality and source-creative data actually flow back to marketing, and use it to make decisions — not assumptions.
• Own the automation build. Oversee the AI-driven content pipeline — scrape, theme, script, edit, post, learn — so output scales without scaling headcount.
• Steward the brand beyond students. Own our careers page and support our CEO's personal-brand content, because the same engine that attracts students also attracts the A-players we need to hire.

• You've already built this somewhere else. You've scaled an organic or paid content function for a real brand and you can point to the number that proves it.
• You already think this way. Creative is the targeting, saves matter more than views, capture-don't-manufacture. If we have to explain why the old playbook stopped working, this isn't the role for you.
• You have a hiring bar, not just a headcount plan. You've hired A-players and let go of people who weren't, and you can tell the difference quickly.
• You're comfortable with data. You can tie a specific piece of content to a specific qualified applicant — not just a view count.
• You're a builder, not a caretaker. You're inheriting a team and a volume target, not a finished machine.

What will make you stand out:

• You've run a brand or content function through the exact constraint we're in now — low posting volume, no written Avatar, ads built from new shoots instead of proven organic.
• You've built or overseen a customer-research pipeline sourced from sales calls or customer interviews.
• You've personally hired multiple A-players into a function you built, and can walk us through how you screened them.
• You've overseen or used AI-driven content automation — scraping, scripting, or automated editing pipelines.
• You've worked in or sold into blue-collar, trade, or workforce-education markets.

• On-site in Gillette, WY.
• Regular presence on the shop floor — you need to see what's being captured and why, even though this isn't a hands-on production role.
• Comfortable in an active training environment: heat, sparks, noise, PPE required in certain areas.
• Some travel between Western Welding Academy properties in Gillette.

Don't just hit Apply and send a resume. Here's exactly what to do:

1. Click Apply and attach your resume.
2. Tell us one specific number you can point to from a brand or content function you've run — and how you got it.
3. Attach or link one example of a hiring bar you've built: a job description you wrote, a candidate scorecard you used, or a specific hire you can walk us through.
4. Answer one question in a few sentences: what's the single biggest constraint holding marketing teams back, how you identify it and overcome it?

Applications that answer the question specifically, with a real example, go to the top of the pile. Generic answers won't be reviewed.