Producer/Project Manager

About the role

We are seeking a highly organized and detail-oriented Producer / Project Manager to lead the end-to-end delivery lifecycle for the Heartbeat & Limited Series studio — the team behind Yaqeen's weekly scholarly programming and cinematic limited series. The studio's slate spans an always-on weekly show, a flagship historical series with an interactive companion experience, multiple seasonal series produced with external partners, and a short-form distribution system — nine concurrent workstreams delivered across a single production year.

This role focuses on delivery execution and operational excellence, working in close partnership with the Executive Producer, who owns creative direction and content strategy. You'll be the connective tissue between editors, animators, designers, writers, engineers, marketing counterparts, and external production partners — managing timelines, streamlining workflows, tracking budgets, and ensuring everything is executed correctly and on time. You will also build and maintain the studio's production playbook, turning the systems created this year into reusable infrastructure for future flagship series

What you'll do

Project Management & Delivery

• Own and maintain all production schedules and task tracking (ClickUp) across the studio's slate — weekly episodes, flagship series milestones, external deliveries, and launch dates — as the single source of truth
• Lead weekly team standups and planning sessions to track progress, keep teams organized, and ensure output is predictable
• Coordinate the handoff of content and assets between editing, animation, design, copy, and marketing through all functional stages of the workflow
• Track and prepare the studio's production checkpoints and review gates, ensuring each receives a deliberate review with the Executive Producer before dependent work or spend proceeds
• Manage task assignments, track progress, and facilitate scope adjustments as needed in partnership with the Executive Producer

Vendor & Partner Management

• Manage day-to-day communication with external production partners and freelance contractors end-to-end, including milestone-based delivery schedules and early-warning checkpoints
• Monitor contracted delivery dates and buffers across concurrent external productions, flagging risks to the Executive Producer early
• Coordinate onboarding, briefs, and monthly work plans for freelance editors and animators supplementing studio capacity

Budget & Reporting

• Track project spend against approved budgets across all productions and flag variances to leadership before they materialize
• Assemble the studio's monthly reporting package — performance metrics against KPIs, budget position, checkpoint status, and audience-insight themes — for the Executive Producer's leadership report
• Support resource and capacity planning across the studio, flagging constraints and recommending allocation adjustments

Process Documentation & Operational Excellence

• Build and maintain the studio's production playbook: document research protocols, production workflows, delivery standards, and partnership templates as they are created, so future series inherit working systems
• Ensure documentation is usable by team members beyond the original production through structured review
• Identify, recommend, and implement process improvements across production, post-production, and publishing workflows
• Stay up to date with industry trends and best practices in production management and creative operations

Cross-functional Collaboration & Communication

• Manage stakeholder expectations by communicating project timelines, dependencies, and risks in a timely and transparent manner
• Coordinate scheduling and production logistics with scholar-hosts and subject matter experts in support of the Executive Producer's creative partnerships
• Collaborate with marketing, curriculum, engineering, and product counterparts to align release schedules, companion experiences, and promotional campaigns
• Mediate discussions to create shared ownership among cross-functional teams in order to maintain project momentum and avoid schedule interruptions

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required
• Certifications: Project Management Professional (PMP) – PMI (Preferred) · Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) – Scrum Alliance (Preferred)
• 3–5+ years of experience leading cross-functional projects in media production, creative agencies, or comparable multi-stream environments, with a proven record of delivering on time and within scope
• Experience managing project timelines, risk mitigation, and dependency management across concurrent workstreams
• Experience coordinating the efforts of editors, animators, designers, subject matter experts, engineers, and marketers
• Experience managing external vendors, production partners, or freelancers, including milestone-based contracts and deliveries
• Experience tracking spend against approved budgets and reporting variances to leadership
• Skilled in facilitating communication between creative teams and non-technical stakeholders to ensure alignment on execution, scope constraints, and delivery expectations
• Proficiency with modern project management and collaboration tools (ClickUp, Jira, Asana, Monday)
• Experience in video production or post-production environments (episodic, documentary, or digital-first) preferred
• Familiarity with YouTube-first publishing workflows and release calendars a plus
• Familiarity with Islamic content and the standards of scholarly review it requires a plus
• Experience documenting processes or building operational playbooks a plus

Yaqeen Institute embraces a philosophy that values and promotes diversity. Our goal is to attract, develop, retain, and advance a talented and diverse workforce within a culture where all employees are empowered to reach their fullest potential.

Please note that all career opportunities at Yaqeen Institute are subject to a three-month probationary period, during which we assess performance, alignment with our values, and mutual fit to ensure long-term success in the role.