Principal Creative Director Jobs
Principal Creative Director jobs are open across advertising, tech, entertainment, retail, and media, from senior creative director to executive creative lead, with specializations in brand identity, campaign strategy, and content systems. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Showing 5 of 7+ Principal Creative Director jobs
We're transforming the grocery industry
At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.
Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.
Instacart is a Flex First team
There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.
Overview
Local Produce is Instacart's in-house creative agency. We build brand storytelling that is strategic, fun, and fresh, and we make grocery shopping feel effortless across film, photo, social, product surfaces, and experiential moments.
We are hiring a Principal Creative, Growth Production to own the production engine behind our growth and direct response (DR) work. You will produce high-volume video and performance creative, run the operations that keep it moving, and build the systems that let the team scale without losing quality. You do the work and you oversee it. One week you are on set or in the edit review, the next you are rebuilding an intake process or negotiating a vendor rate card.
You will join a tight-knit core senior production team of 4 within a 10-person production org and a 40-person agency. You will work directly with senior stakeholders in Growth and Marketing, make judgment calls on creative, operational, and business affairs questions in real time, and set the bar for how we produce.
About the Job
- Own end-to-end production for growth and DR creative across video, photo, social, design, and AI-scalable formats, from brief through final delivery and platform-ready versioning.
- Run video production hands-on and at scale: testimonial, UGC, talent-led, short-form, and vertical content for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and paid media placements.
- Plan and produce for performance. Build modular shoots and asset systems that yield many cutdowns, hooks, and variants per production day, and work with Growth and Marketing partners to turn test results into the next round of creative.
- Translate briefs into production strategies, scopes, budgets, and timelines. Manage AICP-style bidding, cost tracking, and reconciliations to deliver on time and within budget.
- Build and maintain the creative operational systems for the growth team: intake and briefing, production calendars, asset naming and versioning, review and approval flows, delivery specs, and reporting. Document everything so the team can run it without you.
- Drive AI production workflows alongside traditional production. Know where AI tools speed up or replace conventional methods for iteration, versioning, and scale, and where they do not.
- Own Business Affairs responsibilities, including usage rights, licensing, talent and music clearances, and audit-ready deliverables, in partnership with Legal, Policy, and IP.
- Handle localization end to end: produce content in multiple languages (English and Spanish preferred) and manage the workflows that keep multilingual assets consistent and on time.
- Source, negotiate, and manage a diverse roster of production partners, including directors, DPs, editors, color, sound, finishing, music, and freelance creators, matched to the needs of each project and its budget.
- Lead pre-production and on-set operations: casting, locations, permits, insurance, releases, safety, and union and non-union compliance.
- Establish repeatable workflows, templates, and documentation in Airtable, Asana, and Frame.io. Mentor teammates and push continuous improvement across the production function.
- Flex into high-profile commercial and cultural projects as business needs shift.
About You
You are a producer who can do the work and run the operation around it. You are comfortable on set, in a bid, in a contract review, and in a spreadsheet that tracks 40 deliverables. You do not wait for a manager to make the call.
Minimum Qualifications
- 13+ years of end-to-end creative production experience delivering multi-channel campaigns (video, photo, social, digital) at an agency or in-house, with range across formats beyond traditional linear production.
- Direct experience producing growth, performance, or DR creative at volume, including short-form and vertical video, UGC, and iterative creative testing.
- Proven track record producing testimonial and brand content across multi-market shoots, with hands-on on-set leadership from pre-production through post.
- Demonstrated experience building creative operations: intake, workflow, templates, asset management, and reporting that a team adopted and kept using.
- Ownership of campaign budgets of $250K+ and experience managing 10+ external partners per project.
- Fluency in Business Affairs: usage rights, licensing, talent and music clearances, legal, policy, and IP approvals, and audit-readiness.
- Deep knowledge of production operations: schedules and call sheets, permits and insurance, talent and location releases, and SAG-AFTRA, union, and non-union workflows.
- Familiarity with AI production tools and workflows, and a point of view on how they are changing the craft.
- Proficiency with Google Workspace, Airtable or Asana, Frame.io, and basic Adobe Creative Cloud for review and markup. Ability to travel up to 25% for shoots.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in an in-house creative agency, partnering with Marketing, Growth, Product, Legal, Policy, and IP teams.
- Background in high-growth tech, marketplace, retail, or grocery, with fluency in both brand and performance objectives.
- Experience producing celebrity and talent-led work, UGC, and social-first formats for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
- Familiarity with AICP bid forms, cost reporting, tax incentives, and multi-state production compliance. PMP or a recognized production certification is a plus.
- Bilingual in English and Spanish, with hands-on experience producing content in both languages.
- Comfort working at a senior scope, across domains, without close oversight, and with credibility at the senior stakeholder level.
#LI-Remote
Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.
Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.
For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
CA, NY, CT, NJ
$201,000 - $212,000 USD
WA
$193,000 - $203,500 USD
OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI
$184,000 - $194,000 USD
All other states
$167,000 - $176,500 USD
We're transforming the grocery industry
At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.
Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.
Instacart is a Flex First team
There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.
Overview
Local Produce is Instacart's in-house creative agency. We build brand storytelling that is strategic, fun, and fresh, and we make grocery shopping feel effortless across film, photo, social, product surfaces, and experiential moments.
We are hiring a Principal Creative, Growth Production to own the production engine behind our growth and direct response (DR) work. You will produce high-volume video and performance creative, run the operations that keep it moving, and build the systems that let the team scale without losing quality. You do the work and you oversee it. One week you are on set or in the edit review, the next you are rebuilding an intake process or negotiating a vendor rate card.
You will join a tight-knit core senior production team of 4 within a 10-person production org and a 40-person agency. You will work directly with senior stakeholders in Growth and Marketing, make judgment calls on creative, operational, and business affairs questions in real time, and set the bar for how we produce.
About the Job
- Own end-to-end production for growth and DR creative across video, photo, social, design, and AI-scalable formats, from brief through final delivery and platform-ready versioning.
- Run video production hands-on and at scale: testimonial, UGC, talent-led, short-form, and vertical content for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and paid media placements.
- Plan and produce for performance. Build modular shoots and asset systems that yield many cutdowns, hooks, and variants per production day, and work with Growth and Marketing partners to turn test results into the next round of creative.
- Translate briefs into production strategies, scopes, budgets, and timelines. Manage AICP-style bidding, cost tracking, and reconciliations to deliver on time and within budget.
- Build and maintain the creative operational systems for the growth team: intake and briefing, production calendars, asset naming and versioning, review and approval flows, delivery specs, and reporting. Document everything so the team can run it without you.
- Drive AI production workflows alongside traditional production. Know where AI tools speed up or replace conventional methods for iteration, versioning, and scale, and where they do not.
- Own Business Affairs responsibilities, including usage rights, licensing, talent and music clearances, and audit-ready deliverables, in partnership with Legal, Policy, and IP.
- Handle localization end to end: produce content in multiple languages (English and Spanish preferred) and manage the workflows that keep multilingual assets consistent and on time.
- Source, negotiate, and manage a diverse roster of production partners, including directors, DPs, editors, color, sound, finishing, music, and freelance creators, matched to the needs of each project and its budget.
- Lead pre-production and on-set operations: casting, locations, permits, insurance, releases, safety, and union and non-union compliance.
- Establish repeatable workflows, templates, and documentation in Airtable, Asana, and Frame.io. Mentor teammates and push continuous improvement across the production function.
- Flex into high-profile commercial and cultural projects as business needs shift.
About You
You are a producer who can do the work and run the operation around it. You are comfortable on set, in a bid, in a contract review, and in a spreadsheet that tracks 40 deliverables. You do not wait for a manager to make the call.
Minimum Qualifications
- 13+ years of end-to-end creative production experience delivering multi-channel campaigns (video, photo, social, digital) at an agency or in-house, with range across formats beyond traditional linear production.
- Direct experience producing growth, performance, or DR creative at volume, including short-form and vertical video, UGC, and iterative creative testing.
- Proven track record producing testimonial and brand content across multi-market shoots, with hands-on on-set leadership from pre-production through post.
- Demonstrated experience building creative operations: intake, workflow, templates, asset management, and reporting that a team adopted and kept using.
- Ownership of campaign budgets of $250K+ and experience managing 10+ external partners per project.
- Fluency in Business Affairs: usage rights, licensing, talent and music clearances, legal, policy, and IP approvals, and audit-readiness.
- Deep knowledge of production operations: schedules and call sheets, permits and insurance, talent and location releases, and SAG-AFTRA, union, and non-union workflows.
- Familiarity with AI production tools and workflows, and a point of view on how they are changing the craft.
- Proficiency with Google Workspace, Airtable or Asana, Frame.io, and basic Adobe Creative Cloud for review and markup. Ability to travel up to 25% for shoots.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in an in-house creative agency, partnering with Marketing, Growth, Product, Legal, Policy, and IP teams.
- Background in high-growth tech, marketplace, retail, or grocery, with fluency in both brand and performance objectives.
- Experience producing celebrity and talent-led work, UGC, and social-first formats for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
- Familiarity with AICP bid forms, cost reporting, tax incentives, and multi-state production compliance. PMP or a recognized production certification is a plus.
- Bilingual in English and Spanish, with hands-on experience producing content in both languages.
- Comfort working at a senior scope, across domains, without close oversight, and with credibility at the senior stakeholder level.
#LI-Remote
Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.
Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.
For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
CA, NY, CT, NJ
$201,000 - $212,000 USD
WA
$193,000 - $203,500 USD
OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI
$184,000 - $194,000 USD
All other states
$167,000 - $176,500 USD
See All 7 Principal Creative Director Jobs
Find roles that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find JobsPrincipal Creative Director Job Market
Who's Hiring
What Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in principal creative director jobs.
- 10 or more years of progressive creative leadership experience across brand or agency environments
- Demonstrable experience managing and mentoring teams of designers, writers, and art directors
- Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, and presentation tools
- Proven ability to develop and steward brand identity systems at scale
- Experience presenting creative strategy to executive stakeholders and client leadership
- Bachelor's degree in graphic design, fine arts, communications, or a related creative field
Tips for Your Principal Creative Director Job Search
Lead your portfolio with systems thinking
Principal creative directors are hired to build and scale creative output, not just execute campaigns. Show work that demonstrates how you established brand systems, led cross-functional teams, and set standards others followed. Execution samples alone won't land this level.
Tailor your resume to the org type
Agency and in-house principal creative director roles want different things. Agency listings prioritize pitch wins and client revenue impact. In-house listings weight team size managed and product launch outcomes. Reframe the same experience to match whichever type you're targeting.
Apply early to roles that fit
Migrate Mate lists principal creative director openings from across the United States in one place, so you can find roles that match and apply directly to each listing.
Filter by industry vertical before applying
Principal creative director expectations shift sharply by vertical. A fintech company wants someone who can make compliance-heavy content feel human. A consumer brand wants cultural fluency. Read the full job description for vertical cues before applying and address them directly in your cover letter.
Prepare a creative brief walkthrough for interviews
Most final-round interviews for this role include a whiteboard or deck exercise. Practice walking a hiring committee through a brief you wrote, explaining the strategic choices behind it. This separates candidates who can direct from those who can only produce.
Negotiate scope before you negotiate pay
At the principal level, your reporting structure and resource access define what you can actually accomplish. Before closing on an offer, clarify team headcount, budget authority, and whether you have a seat in product or strategy meetings. These terms shape your ability to do the job.
Principal Creative Director Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies are hiring the most principal creative directors?
Pacaso, Tinuiti, and Instacart are hiring the most principal creative directors right now, with openings concentrated in Washington, Illinois, and California, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Demand is strongest at large consumer brands, integrated agencies, and enterprise technology companies building in-house creative studios.
How many principal creative director jobs are remote?
About 100% of principal creative director openings are fully remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting strong employer demand for in-person creative leadership at the principal level. Roles focused on digital campaigns, content strategy, and brand systems tend to offer the most remote flexibility compared to roles tied to physical product or experiential work.
How do you become a principal creative director?
Most principal creative directors start in design, copywriting, or art direction, then move into creative director roles where they lead projects and small teams. From there, building a record of brand system development, cross-functional collaboration, and executive presentations positions you for the principal level. Seeking out roles that require you to hire, mentor, and set creative standards accelerates the path significantly.
Can you get a principal creative director job without direct experience at that level?
Yes, but you need to demonstrate readiness through the work you show, not just the titles you've held. Candidates who document the scope of teams they've led, the brand systems they've built, and the strategic decisions they've owned often move into principal roles from senior creative director positions without a direct title match. A portfolio that shows leadership impact carries more weight than a credential.
What does the principal creative director interview process look like?
The process typically runs three to five rounds. Early stages include a recruiter screen and a hiring manager conversation focused on leadership philosophy and career history. Later rounds involve a portfolio presentation to a cross-functional panel and often a creative exercise or brief review. Final rounds may include a conversation with a chief marketing officer or executive creative lead assessing cultural and strategic fit.
Where can I find and apply to principal creative director jobs?
You can find and apply to principal creative director jobs on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings from across the United States. Search for roles that match your background and industry focus, then apply directly to each listing that fits your experience and the type of creative leadership work you want to do next.
See All 7 Principal Creative Director Jobs
Find roles that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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