Search Engine Optimization Team Lead

About the Role:

We are seeking a forward-thinking SEO Strategist who brings the strategic acumen of a consultant, the technical clarity of an SEO expert, and the customer empathy of a product thinker. The role's scope is dependent on the preferred candidate's capabilities and career aspirations. The role may either lead the SEO team or act as a thought leader and strategic advisor, deeply involved in mentoring, guiding, and empowering our internal SEO team.

If you enjoy building long-term organic strategies while enabling teams to execute with confidence and clarity—this role is for you.

Your work won't just be about ranking pages, but about building an intent-first SEO engine that helps students navigate life-changing decisions—from course discovery and visa guidance to scholarships and job pathways.

Key Responsibilities:

1.Vision & Strategy Development

• Design a future-proof SEO roadmap in line with evolving trends like AI Search, SGE, LLM integration, and zero-click behaviors.
• Use Jobs-To-Be-Done frameworks to guide strategy—aligning keyword themes to real-world student intent and emotional triggers across the journey.
• Help the organization move from keyword-based to intent-based content planning—empowering both scale and personalization.

2. Strategic Support to SEO Team (Leadership or Advisory)

• Depending on the candidate's experience and aspirations, this role may either lead the internal SEO team or act as a strategic advisor and mentor.
• Lead weekly consultative sessions to unblock tactical challenges, recommend new directions, and foster SEO-first thinking across functions.
• Guide the team on building playbooks for content clusters, technical health, interlinking, and authority-building.
• Empower team members to own their SEO verticals (destinations, products, formats) with strategic frameworks you provide.

3. Cross-Functional Influence

• Work closely with content, design, tech, data, and country marketing teams to ensure search-first collaboration.
• Partner with analytics and product teams to build visibility into SEO funnel performance, especially top and mid-funnel intent drop-offs.
• Ensure every effort is aligned to a student-first outcome—whether it's discoverability, helpfulness, or decision support.

Ideal Candidate Profile Must-Haves

• 8+ years in SEO with at least 2 years in a consultative or strategic SEO role
• Demonstrated experience mentoring or coaching SEO teams (or potential to lead)
• Strong grasp of user psychology, keyword intent, and JTBD principles
• Advanced skills across technical SEO, content architecture, E-E-A-T, schema, and SEO analytics
• Familiar with AI's impact on search—from content generation to prompt-based workflows and AI-driven SERPs

Preferred

• Experience working on both agency and client-side SEO teams, providing a comprehensive understanding of diverse client needs and internal ownership.

Bonus Points

• Experience in international education, higher ed, or student products
• Built/led topical authority frameworks, hub & spoke models, or knowledge graphs
• Implemented AI/ML-enabled SEO experimentation or content clustering
• Familiar with SGE testing, Perplexity AI, Bing Copilot, or Gemini search models
• Ability to communicate SEO strategies in business-first language for senior stakeholders

You'll Thrive in This Role If You Are:

• A visionary who doesn't wait for trends to go mainstream
• Someone who thinks like a product owner of organic search
• Comfortable in a consultative setup—guiding without owning execution (or capable of leading a team)
• A team-first leader who believes in enabling, not micromanaging (or a strong individual contributor with leadership potential)
• Passionate about solving real student problems—not just search problems

Success Metrics:

● Clear SEO roadmap aligned to changing search trends and business priorities

● Measurable growth in non-branded organic visibility and conversion

● Strategic uplift in content depth, search experience, and topical authority

● Increased confidence and independence in the internal SEO execution team (or strong strategic influence)

● Preparedness for future models of search (AI, multimodal, conversational)

Why This Role Matters:

This is not a traditional SEO role. It's a strategic anchor for the future of search within our student engagement ecosystem. You'll help shape a search function that's built for humans first, algorithms second—while creating long-term value for millions of students across 12+ countries. This role provides flexibility for the right candidate to either lead or advise based on their strengths and career goals.