Associate Director, Brand & Experience Strategy

About the Role:

The Associate Director of Brand and Experience Strategy shapes how Noodle's university partners engage prospective students across the full recruitment lifecycle. This role works across brand and messaging strategy, lifecycle communications, content strategy, and student experience design, pairing deep partner knowledge and cross-functional fluency. 

As a strategist, you'll act as a consultative partner to both our university partners and internal teams, developing breadth across practice areas while building deeper t-shaped expertise in one or more over time. You'll contribute to frameworks, execute against them with a high degree of independence, and bring strategic thinking to partner-facing work without always being the most senior voice in the room.

The Associate Director plays a supporting role in discovery for their partners, contributing to partner onboarding, program launches, and portfolio expansions. They also act as a consistent second voice in partner relationships, bringing strategic grounding and cross-portfolio insight to partner engagements.

As Associate Director of Brand & Experience Strategy, you will:

Strategic Practice & Framework Contribution
• Contribute to one or more strategic practice areas (such as event strategy, lifecycle communications, content strategy framework, messaging architecture, or UX/student experience design), supporting the development and maintenance of frameworks and participating in continuous improvement efforts
• Execute against shared strategic frameworks and contribute to their documentation and evolution, with the expectation of taking on deeper ownership of a practice area over time
• Partner with other teams and SMEs to understand the possibilities and limitations as you contribute to and apply shared frameworks
• Maintain awareness of cross-portfolio patterns, what is working, what is drifting, and why, and surface observations to senior strategists and the broader team
• Stay current on market trends, student behavior, and higher education recruitment best practices in collaboration with research and analytics teams, bringing relevant insights into partner work
Partner Engagement & Discovery
• Develop familiarity with an assigned set of university partners and their corresponding programs, competitive landscape, institutional priorities, and student audiences
• Serve as a consistent second voice in partner relationships, bringing practice expertise and cross-portfolio perspective to complement the Integrated Marketing Director's ownership of the partner relationship
• Participate in discovery engagements for new program launches and portfolio expansions, contributing through a strategic practice lens and supporting the transfer of insights to execution teams
• Contribute to strategy sessions and workshops with university partner stakeholders, supporting facilitation and helping to surface needs, build alignment, and document actionable plans
• Develop and deliver presentations that articulate strategy, recommend tactics, and support the positioning of Noodle's services to internal and external stakeholders
Lifecycle Communications & Student Experience Design
• Lead the design and mapping of cross-channel lifecycle communications, including automated email and text journeys, recruitment team communication cadences, chat scripts, and toolkits, ensuring strategic coherence across all touchpoints
• Oversee journey mapping processes to capture internal stakeholder perspectives and student expectations across the recruitment and retention lifecycle
• Translate journey insights and partner priorities into clear, actionable briefs that set the implementation team up for successful execution, maintaining a clean handoff between strategy and build
• Contribute to brand strategy, messaging frameworks, and student experience design as a cross-trained practitioner, with depth in your owned area and working fluency across others
Measurement & Visibility
• Contribute to reporting on strategy performance (e.g., content effectiveness, email and communication metrics, and pipeline influence), supporting the team's ability to demonstrate and communicate impact
• Use data and analytical reasoning to identify gaps and flag recommendations, contributing to improvement roadmaps and the ongoing health of the recruitment ecosystem
• Partner with analytics, SEO, and implementation teams to close feedback loops between performance data and strategic decisions
Team and Organizational Contribution
• Support peers and cross-functional collaborators in executing against shared frameworks and practice standards
• Contribute to cross-functional initiatives, including campaign measurement frameworks and new technology rollouts, as a strategic voice representing student engagement priorities
• Support knowledge transfer from discovery and strategy into creative and implementation teams, ensuring strategic intent survives the handoff

You have:

• 3+ years of experience in marketing strategy, brand strategy, content strategy, engagement communications, or a related field; higher education experience preferred
• Demonstrated ability to work across multiple practice areas with developing strategic depth in at least one
• Working understanding of cross-channel lifecycle communications and the student recruitment journey
• Experience contributing to partner-facing strategy sessions, workshops, or discovery engagements
• Comfort working in a matrixed environment where influence matters as much as authority
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present complex ideas clearly to non-technical audiences
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to connect performance data to strategic decisions
• English fluency

Bonus Points If You Have:

Experience in brand strategy, UX, content strategy, sales enablement, or SEO that complements a broad marketing background
Familiarity with higher education enrollment tools and CRM or marketing automation platforms
Experience contributing to discovery or go-to-market planning, including competitive landscape analysis or program positioning
Comfort navigating ambiguity and evolving team structures with a solutions-oriented mindset

Role Requirements:

• Location: Must reside in the continental US, within close proximity to a major airport to facilitate travel to partner universities
• Internet Connectivity: Reliable high-speed connection required; quiet workspace for camera-on, partner-facing meetings
• Core Business Hours: Available during core hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with some flexibility by time zone

Noodle Benefits:

• Work from our beautiful NYC office OR the comfort of your home office!
• Computer and charger on us!
• 401(k) with company match, plus equity opportunities
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family (including mental health benefits like Headspace and Talkspace)
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• Optional voluntary coverage, including supplemental life, accident, critical illness, and hospital insurance
• Health Savings Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), and commuter benefits
• Pre-tax benefit options that help you save on eligible healthcare, dependent care, and commuting expenses
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Paid parental leave
• Wellness initiatives and resources
• Free subscription to the Calm app
• Employee discount program
• 4 weeks of paid vacation + 10 paid holidays + paid sick leave
• Monthly mobile connectivity stipend
• Annual education stipend for lifelong learning
• Growth opportunities - we pride ourselves on creating environments where employees can be themselves and grow within and around the company