Category: Artist/Label Services

Head of Editorial Curation – Magic Nothing
Contractor · Remote · Paid trial to start
The short version
Magic Nothing’s mission is simple: Music Marketing Doesn’t Have to Suck.
We’re a fully bootstrapped company run by a 25-year veteran of DIY & Independent music. We’ve helped thousands of independent artists navigate streaming and social media, and we recently launched an artist-first playlist and vendor marketplace that’s growing rapidly. We have an organic audience of 85k+ people who actually care about music, and now it’s time to build the editorial backbone to match.
We're looking for a Head of Editorial Curation who can make playlists people genuinely want to listen to and be on, grow and promote them, write the kind of coverage that earns a scene's respect, oversee how the whole thing looks, and own the editorial voice of the program.
You'll have creative authority over Magic Nothing Editorial, a real audience, a team that's been doing this work and has a solid collection of playlists to start, and steady pay in a field that almost never offers it. The catch: it has to be a real program that brings in more than it costs and is an obvious win for everyone (artists, fans, curators and Magic Nothing). You'll own that outcome end to end.
This is for someone embedded in the indie world (Pitchfork / Aquarium Drunkard / Dublab / Bandcamp Daily sphere) who has eclectic taste and can navigate business and culture.
What you'll own
1. The curation ladder. You'll design and run a tiered playlist system across our highest-value genres, starting with indie/alt/folk, electronic/house/dance, and hip hop/rap:
• Flagship: the prestige tier. Hardest to get on, genuinely tastemaker. This is the credibility engine.
• Core: accessible, excellent, where most artists realistically land.
• Emerging: the entry point that feeds discovery upward.
2. Promotion & program P&L. Lead promotion of the playlists through organic and paid channels, and own the economics. You'll balance promo spend against the revenue generated through submissions and run the program so it nets clearly more than it costs. This isn't a vanity-metrics role; you're accountable for the program being an obvious win.
3. Editorial content. Reviews, interviews, features, artist spotlights, lists. The goal is to drive traffic, build legitimacy, and give the artists we cover a reason to be in our world. Most likely this is a collaborative effort with our Head of Artist Experience.
4. Design & the whole program. You oversee how Magic Nothing Editorial looks (playlist art, editorial visuals, the overall aesthetic) and you own it end-to-end. You won't have to make everything yourself forever, but until the numbers justify more hands, you do what the work needs.
Who you'll work with
We are a very lean team (Zack Fischmann - CEO/Founder, Nicole Bussey - Head of Artist Experience) and an editorial effort that's already running. You're here to give it clear structure, credibility and scale.
How well you collaborate with the team matters as much as everything else.
You'll go deep with us early on: how the marketplace works, the challenges of running a curation marketplace, the kinds of music we get and the volume of it, artist needs and expectations. The strongest candidates absorb a context-dense business fast and turn it into a plan and then execute.
Who you are
• You have bylines, a respected platform (Substack, blog, radio, an established playlist following), or a track record that makes people in the indie scene nod when they see your name.
• You're involved. You know artists personally, you're at the shows, you have relationships you can pick up the phone on.
• Your taste is specific and defensible. You can tell us why a record matters in a sentence.
• You understand the business reality, that playlists are a revenue vehicle – without ever letting that compromise what gets championed. You get why the integrity is the value.
• You're numerate about promotion. You can run a promo budget, think about cost-per-real-follower against submission revenue, and tell us whether a program is paying for itself.
• You absorb a complex business fast and you make the people around you better.
• You're comfortable around the Spotify ecosystem and steady-handed about the occasional weirdness of indie-scene PR and politics.
• You can write fast and well, and you can run a content cadence without being chased.
What this is not
• We don't sell our way onto our own playlists, and you'll never be asked to.
• Not growth hacking. No spammy language, no "guaranteed streams," none of that.
• Not a role where someone looks over your shoulder on taste. We hired you for it.
How it works
• Contractor, remote. We're in LA; you can be anywhere, though overlap with US/Canada hours makes the work easier and LA is preferred. It starts part-time and scales toward full-time as the program grows.
• Paid 30-day pilot first. Clear deliverables and a shared definition of "a win," so we both know it's a fit before either of us commits.
• Guaranteed monthly retainer + performance bonus. The bonus rewards the audience and legitimacy you build: playlist growth, submission volume, P&L and content reach,.
• You own the outcome. We agree up front, in numbers, on what the program should net and you’re responsible for the outcome.
Compensation
The paid pilot runs $3,000 for the month. From there it moves to a monthly retainer that grows toward $6,500+ as the role expands to full-time, plus a quarterly bonus tied to the program's results.
How to apply
We hire on character, taste, judgment, and follow-through – not pedigree or where you went to school. Please don't lead with a résumé, send us proof of work. In one email, include:
• A flagship playlist concept: name it, describe it in a few sentences, and tell us the genre lane(s) it owns and why you're the person to run it.
• Three artists you'd champion right now that most people haven't caught yet with one line each on why.
• How you'd make it pay: a few sentences on how you'd grow that flagship playlist's audience and think about making the program net more than it costs. We're not looking for a spreadsheet, just proof you think about taste and economics at the same time.
• A sample of your writing: a published piece, a Substack post, or something short written for this (a review or artist spotlight is perfect).
• Links to anything that shows you're in the scene: your platform, your socials, your work.
Send to info@magicnothing.com with the subject line Music Editor – [your name].
We're hiring now and reading every application as it comes in. If your message lands, we'll move fast.