The Role
We are hiring a Lead Thumbnail Designer to own the visual front door of every long-form video PlotPointe publishes on YouTube. This is a senior, leadership-level role for a designer who can sustain elite individual output while building and leading a team that scales with our publishing volume. PlotPointe ships around 48 long-form YouTube videos a month, and the bar for every one is a 9% click-through rate. You will design at that bar, run A/B tests as a default operating rhythm, read YouTube Studio data fluently, and within months hire and lead a thumbnail team built around your standards.
What You'll Be Responsible For
- Driving a sustained 9%+ CTR across the long-form publishing slate of roughly 48 videos a month.
- Designing thumbnails personally at lead-level quality while building the systems that allow a team to match your bar.
- Recruiting, training, and managing a thumbnail team that grows alongside our channel portfolio.
- Setting visual standards across typography, facial expression direction, contrast logic, composition, and asset prep workflows.
- Running A/B testing as a default behavior. Designing the test, reading the result, and iterating fast.
- Turning impression, CTR, and average view duration data into design decisions.
- Collaborating with writers, editors, and channel leads to align thumbnails with story hooks and audience intent.
- Owning quality control across every thumbnail that ships under PlotPointe channels.
- Building a sourcing pipeline of strong designers you can grow the team with.
What We're Looking For
- 4+ years designing thumbnails for storytelling channels at scale.
- Demonstrated personal track record of 8 to 10%+ CTR on channels delivering 1M+ views per video, supported by analytics you can speak to.
- Steady-state experience producing 20+ thumbnails per week.
- Fluency with YouTube Studio analytics, A/B testing methodology, and CTR benchmarking by niche.
- Experience leading or training designers, with the appetite to build a team further.
- Strong communication skills and confidence working across editorial, production, and channel leadership.
- Experience using AI tools
What You Bring
Candidates should bring a portfolio of high-CTR work backed by performance data, examples of design decisions defended with analytics, and the operational maturity to lead a team without losing the individual bar. We care about how you communicate, how you give feedback to junior designers, and how you carry yourself inside a high-volume publishing schedule where decisions move daily.
Skills
- YouTube thumbnail design
- A/B testing methodology
- YouTube Studio analytics
- Adobe Photoshop and Creative Suite
- Visual storytelling and hook design
- Team leadership and mentorship
- High-volume creative production