YouTube Podcast Producer (Part-Time Contract)

At NerdWallet, we’re on a mission to bring clarity to all of life’s financial decisions, and every great mission needs a team of exceptional Nerds. As a contractor, you’ll work alongside our full-time team members on meaningful projects in an inclusive, flexible, and collaborative environment. This is a temporary role, but you’ll have real ownership and contribute to tangible results. NerdWallet is looking for an experienced podcast and YouTube producer to help our award-winning shows ship flawlessly, every week. Our Content Marketing Team helps people know, trust, and love NerdWallet by delivering them great content in the channels and formats they turn to most for financial advice. In this role, you'll own per-episode execution and longform YouTube packaging for our podcast portfolio, including the Smart Money and Smart Travel podcasts — writing show notes and YouTube descriptions, creating thumbnail briefs, reporting on performance across platforms, and making sure every episode ships on time, fully packaged, and optimized to be found. Reporting to the Content Marketing Manager, Podcasts — who sets overall channel strategy and final packaging direction — you'll collaborate with a small team that includes podcast hosts, producers, strategists, a thumbnail designer, and marketing managers. This role is defined by ownership and operational excellence: you'll apply our packaging and SEO frameworks with speed, consistency, and strong editorial judgment, and your reporting and recommendations will directly shape how we package and grow our shows. This role reports to the Staff Brand Manager. WHERE YOU CAN MAKE AN IMPACT: - Own our show notes: You'll write show notes for Smart Money and Smart Travel — both podcast and YouTube versions — and route them to our producer for copy editing on a consistent Monday–Thursday publish schedule. - Drive our thumbnail pipeline: You'll create detailed YouTube thumbnail briefs, applying our title and packaging frameworks, and coordinate with our thumbnail designer to ensure on-time delivery for every episode. - Report on performance: You'll pull and maintain weekly data from Megaphone, YouTube Studio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Veritonic, keep our reporting spreadsheets current, and deliver concise executive summaries that highlight what's working, what isn't, and what's worth watching. - Safeguard priority placements: You'll review episode scripts against our priority link list to confirm each episode includes the right call-outs to NerdWallet resources. - Maximize organic discovery: You'll strengthen our podcast SEO by managing keyword tracking in Ausha and validating YouTube titles, descriptions, and tags with vidIQ. - Help launch new channels: You'll support the launch and ongoing packaging of a Smart Travel YouTube channel — descriptions, thumbnails, and metadata — as it comes online. - Grow with the portfolio: Your scope and hours may expand as NerdWallet considers expanding its podcast portfolio. YOU ARE: - A self-directed operator: You've run podcast and YouTube publishing operations before and work autonomously — you don't need daily direction to keep a multi-show schedule on track. - A strong, fast writer: You can match an established brand voice and produce clean, accurate copy on deadline — show notes, descriptions, and metadata that read like the brand, not like a template. - Deadline-driven and detail-obsessed: Episodes ship on time, every time, with nothing missing. You catch the broken link, the missing tag, and the off-brand phrase before anyone else does. - A clear, proactive communicator: You keep editors, designers, and managers ahead of every deadline, flagging risks early rather than explaining misses later. - Analytical and insights-driven: You're comfortable pulling performance data from multiple platforms and translating it into a concise summary an executive can read in two minutes. - AI-fluent: You actively use AI tools like Claude to accelerate drafting, research, a…