Creative Lead (Social & UGC)

Creative Milkshake is a remote-first performance creative agency. We make scroll-stopping short-form ads for some of the world’s most exciting DTC brands on Meta and TikTok - high-volume, fast-moving, and built to convert.

We’re a close-knit team of ~34 people spread across the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, and beyond. We’ve recently joined the Fieldtrip group alongside inBeat, which means we’re growing - in ambition, in capability, and in the complexity of clients we work with.

Our Amsterdam studio is the creative heart of our production operation. Over the next 1–2 years, we’re expanding from UGC-first content toward elevated branded formats, this role is central to holding the quality bar as we scale.

We make a lot of content. Across a portfolio of DTC clients, our studio shoots and edits dozens of UGC ads every week. Most of it is good. Some of it is great. And the difference between good and great is specific: the hook that actually stops the scroll, the edit that holds attention, the subtle thing that makes a piece of content feel native rather than forced. That's what this role is about.

We’re looking for a Creative Lead (Social & UGC) to be the final creative eye before work reaches clients. You'll review raw footage, storyboards, and final edits, and give the kind of specific, hands-on feedback that actually improves the work rather than just flags problems.

You’ve made content yourself. You’ve been on set, you’ve been in the edit, you know what it takes to make a 15-second video that does something to the person watching it. You bring that maker's instinct to a quality and creative leadership role, and you use it to raise the bar across a whole studio.

Timezone preference: For this role, we're only considering candidates based in +/−3 hrs CET time zone.

What you’ll do

Hold the creative quality bar

• Review storyboards, raw footage when necessary, and final edits before they go to clients
• Be the quality gate: if something isn’t ready, you say so clearly, and you explain exactly what needs to change and why
• Build and maintain the ad example library, creative checklists, and “what good looks like” guides that codify your instinct into something the whole team can learn from
• Spot recurring patterns: editing habits that aren't working, storyboard mistakes that keep appearing, hooks that aren't landing. Address them at the root, not ad by ad

Give hands-on creative direction in post

• Review raw footage after shoots and provide clear direction on what’s usable, what’s not, and what to do differently next time
• Give precise editing feedback to our video editors: pacing, cut points, text overlays, sound design, the craft layer that turns a decent edit into something that performs
• Understand design fundamentals well enough to give direction on static assets, thumbnail frames, and text treatments: what reads on a phone screen and what doesn't
• Know what a 9:16 UGC ad needs to do in the first 2 seconds, and be able to articulate it in a way an editor can act on immediately

Support production with a creative eye

• Review storyboards before shoots and flag what isn’t shootable as written, what talent or set requirements are missing, and where the brief and the concept have drifted
• Give production the creative context they need to go into a shoot prepared: what angles matter, what the edit is going to need, what “good” looks like for this format and this brand
• Periodically join shoots at the Amsterdam studio (+-3 times a year) when creative stakes are high or a new format is being tested
• Over time, help build a visual reference library for the studio: what set styles, lighting setups, and shooting approaches produce the most versatile footage

Drive platform and content intelligence

• Maintain a genuine, current relationship with TikTok, Meta, and emerging short-form platforms: scrolling with a critical eye, not just awareness
• Curate a regular inspiration feed for the team: specific content examples with notes on why they work, what the craft decisions are, and how we could produce something similar in our studio
• Know the difference between a format worth adopting and a trend worth skipping, and be able to make the case either way
• Bring fresh creative references when the team’s output starts feeling formulaic or dated

Build the team’s creative instinct

• Give Creative Strategists feedback on CSPs and scripts that builds their creative eye over time, not just fixes the brief in front of them
• Run regular creative review sessions and inspiration shares that create a shared language for what “good” means at Creative Milkshake
• Be the person the team brings work to when they're not sure if it's there yet, and give them an answer they can trust

Own CM’s creative identity externally

• Approve CM's own social content and website portfolio: what we put out about ourselves should reflect the standard we hold for clients
• Help define and document CM’s creative POV over time: the format instincts, the aesthetic signatures, the things that make our content recognizably ours

Who you are

We’re not filtering on titles. We're looking for a specific type of person: someone with a sharp creative eye for what works on social, who wants to use that experience to raise the quality of an entire studio's output.

• 3–7 years of hands-on experience in video production, editing, content creation, or a creative role at a social-first agency or DTC brand. You've made things, not just briefed them
• A genuine, current feel for short-form social content: you scroll TikTok and Meta with a critical eye, you notice what’s working before it’s obvious, and you can describe the craft decisions behind it in specific terms
• Ability to understand paid media and performance marketing reports to inform creative decisions
• Real editing experience, or close enough collaboration with editors, that you speak the language of the edit
• Enough on-set or production experience to spot when a storyboard isn’t going to translate, and know what to do about it
• The ability to tell a good ad from a great one in seconds, and explain why in a way the person who made it can actually use
• Feedback that is specific, timestamped, and producible, not vague creative notes that leave people guessing
• High EQ: you can give honest creative feedback without damaging the confidence or the relationship of the person on the other end
• Comfortable with ambiguity and pace: we're building systems while operating at volume
• Fluent in English, confident presenting creative rationale to clients when needed

Backgrounds that tend to produce this person

There’s no single path. People who are great at this role often come from one of these places:

• A video editor or post-production lead who has developed a strong creative eye for social, and wants to work upstream on quality rather than just executing edits
• A UGC creator or content creator who has built a real, granular understanding of what performs and why, and wants to bring that instinct to a studio environment at scale
• A creative producer who sits between strategy and production, has strong taste, and wants to formalise that into a quality leadership role
• A social content lead or in-house creative at a DTC brand who has been hands-on with short-form video and wants to take their creative judgement further

What they all share: they’ve made things, they have taste, and they can teach it.

You’ll thrive here if…

• You get genuinely excited about the craft of short-form video: the hook, the cut, the text timing, the sound. You find it hard to watch a mediocre ad without knowing what you'd fix
• You want a role where your creative instinct directly improves what goes out the door every week
• You’re energised by the challenge of holding a high standard at volume: lots of content, lots of clients, fast turnarounds
• You want to shape creative culture from the inside: setting a standard, building the resources that make a team better, defining what “good” means at a growing studio
• The idea of helping a UGC studio move toward elevated social-first content over the next couple of years sounds like exactly the right moment to join

This role isn’t for you if…

• You’ve only worked in creative strategy or performance marketing and haven’t been hands-on with video production or editing
• Your creative background is in brand identity or traditional advertising rather than short-form, social-first content
• You prefer to stay in the strategic or conceptual space and find production and editing detail less interesting
• You’re primarily looking for a people-management role. Your influence here comes through creative expertise, not team size

What we offer

• Creative Milkshake Stipends (mental health, healthcare & internet)
• Time Off: 21 days PTO + 7 Paid Sick Days; company closure: 2 weeks at year-end (estimated: December 22 – January 5)
• Maternity/Paternity Leave
• Yearly Salary Review
• Long Service Incentives (starting from 2 years)