The Role
About Us
Powered by one of the largest global newsrooms in sports media, The Athletic brings sports fans the most comprehensive stories about the teams, sports and athletes they love. The Athletic’s newsroom of 500+ full-time staff delivers in-depth coverage of hundreds of professional and college teams across more than 47 North American markets and all 20 football clubs in the English Premier League, as well as many Championship clubs.
About the Role
The SEO function at The Athletic plays an essential role in reaching and growing our biggest audience channel: search.
We are seeking a Technical SEO Manager to be the dedicated search expert embedded within the Product organization, with full ownership of the technical SEO roadmap and execution. While partnering closely with the Editorial SEO team on overall strategy, this role is responsible for improving search visibility primarily by enhancing the product’s technical capabilities and performance. You will partner directly with engineers and product leads to ensure the latest technical SEO best practices are implemented, the site’s technical health is sound, and all product development aligns with Google’s core guidelines. Furthermore, you will analyze search performance, develop search strategies, and lead initiatives to grow search.
Responsibilities
- Influence and direct strategic search projects in partnership with the editorial SEO team, the Audience team, and the Product organization (including Product and Engineering leadership).
- Lead on analyzing SEO performance metrics, translating complex data into actionable insights and continuous strategic adjustments.
- Establish the prioritization framework of SEO initiatives by evaluating potential impact and business value against the required effort to ensure focus on the highest-value work.
- Oversee and conduct continuous technical audits; identifying enhancements, bugs, and fixes, and filing them in JIRA.
- Ensure product compliance to web performance standards, including Core Web Vitals, Time to First Byte (TTFB), and accessibility guidelines, driving accountability across Engineering teams.
- Analyze traffic abnormalities and fluctuations, providing real-time debugging, auditing, and diagnosing.
- Monitor and benchmark competitors in the sports news space, looking at different technical aspects of their site for insights and inspiration.
- Develop and deliver ongoing technical SEO training programs, and establish technical standards and best practices for cross-functional teams.
- Maintain a strong understanding of Google's search ecosystem, proactively staying informed about the latest algorithm updates, bugs, new requirements, and features.
- Build familiarity with new technologies and platforms, including AI search engines,, to inform product strategy.
Requirements
- Must have 4+ years of technical SEO experience.
- 2+ years demonstrated experience working with product and engineering teams.
- Experience managing multiple work streams.
- An understanding of current technical search best practices and the implementation details to achieve them.
- Experience communicating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and helping to weigh the impact of technical SEO work on UX and Audience.
- Experience using multiple industry-leading SEO tools (Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Botify, Ahrefs, etc.).
- Comprehension of Schema.org, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTTP status codes, and web standards.
The annual base salary range for this role is $125,000.00 - $135,000.00 USD. The total compensation offered for this position may vary based on factors such as education, experience, skills, and location.
For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.
For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.
The Athletic Media Company is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. The Athletic will consider all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
Click here to review our Applicant Privacy Notice, which describes how and when The Athletic Media Company collects, uses, and shares certain personal information of job applicants and prospective employees.
Beware of fraudulent job recruiting schemes! Our recruiters use [email protected] exclusively, and our team members will use an email address with @theathletic.com domain. We do not conduct interviews via text or instant message and we do not ask candidates to download software, to purchase equipment through us, or to provide sensitive personally identifiable information, such as bank accounts or social security numbers. If you have been contacted by someone claiming to be a member of the recruiting/HR team at The Athletic but operating from a different email address about a job offer, please report it as potential job fraud to the law enforcement and to [email protected].
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The Company
What We Do
Here for every sports story that matters. -- The Athletic (http://theathletic.com) is a subscription-based media publisher of smarter sports coverage for die-hard fans. Founded in 2016, The Athletic’s all-star team of writers have produced thousands of quality stories for subscribers free of ads, pop-ups and auto-play videos. The Athletic now offers in-depth local coverage in 47 North American pro sports markets along with premium national coverage across MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA & more. Readers can count on original, authentic storytelling written by talented local and national sports journalists like Ken Rosenthal, Pierre LeBrun, Seth Davis, Stewart Mandel, Shams Charania and many more. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
