Ad Monetization Lead

About the Company

If you want to build, develop, and see your impact, join Skillz and level up your Career!

Skillz, the first publicly-traded mobile eSports platform that hosts billions of casual mobile gaming tournaments for millions of players worldwide, is revolutionizing the gaming industry. By fostering social competition within games, the Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling real-money activity in their games and providing operational support while connecting players through fair, enjoyable, and meaningful competition.

At Skillz, we understand the thrill of achievement and the satisfaction of overcoming challenges. Want to join a team made up of alums from Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Twitter (X), Roblox, Zynga, Samsung, Lyft, EA, Riot, Nexon, Gameskraft, PlayStation, Unity, Scopely, Tinder, Intel, Deloitte, EY, Twitch, DraftKings, Wynn Resorts and more? Learn more to see if Skillz is the right fit for your next career move!

Why Skillz

• Culture of Impact: Join a united team of builders, creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs driven by the desire to win. At Skillz, we create value, obsess over our product, and make a difference in the world.

• Comprehensive Benefits: Enjoy peace of mind with our comprehensive benefits package, which includes 100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision expenses for both you and your dependents. Additionally, take advantage of our 401K matching, equity incentives, pre-tax benefit options, and more.

• Wellness Support: Enhance your well-being with our array of wellness initiatives, including meditation and mental health resources, physical fitness coaching and classes, family planning assistance, health and parenting guidance, virtual therapy sessions, and more.

• Time off: We offer competitive paid time off (PTO) & company holidays to help you recharge and pursue your passions.

• Las Vegas Headquarters: Skillz strongly believes in a five-day a week, collaborative office environment at our 36,000+ square foot headquarters. Enjoy free breakfast and catered lunches, snacks, a full-size gym with showers, commuter benefits, insurance, team bonding events and many more. 

• Recognized Success: Skillz has earned recognition as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, CNBC's Disruptor 50, San Francisco Business Times' Best Places to Work, Forbes' Next Billion-Dollar Startups, and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000 list, and many more.

• Development Opportunities: We hold our employees to high standards while providing them with professional growth opportunities. We operate like a startup, and encourage all of our employees to collaborate and voice feedback about our product and ways we can improve as a business. We believe in never settling, and that also pertains to your growth. 

About the Role 

This is a strategic, business-owner role responsible for building Skillz's ad monetization function. It is best suited for candidates with deep ad monetization expertise who are motivated by scaling an ad operations business from zero to one, building demand, and scaling yield.

Responsibilities

• Own AppLovin MAX, GAM, and additional mediation platforms. Drive eCPM, fill rate, completion rate, and revenue per impression through floor pricing, frequency capping, waterfall vs. bidding optimization, and ongoing A/B testing.
• Build and manage relationships with ad networks, DSPs, and direct brand and agency advertisers. Close direct deals for sponsored tournaments, branded prize pools, and premium tournament inventory.
• Roll out rewarded video and interstitial placements across our top mobile titles. Enforce the event-design patterns pilots have validated to maximize yield.
• Own the core monetization dashboards covering ad performance, event economics, cohort performance, and cannibalization. Deliver weekly forecasts, monthly QBRs, and the annual revenue plan in partnership with FP&A.
• Monitor impression-vs-entry reconciliation, manage competitor ad blocking through third-party competitive monitoring tools, and enforce ad-quality and brand-safety review. Partner with engineering on fraud detection and validation roadmap.

Key Competencies

• Deep Ad Monetization Expertise — Demonstrated mastery of mobile ad mediation (AppLovin MAX, Google Ad Manager, and equivalent platforms), waterfall vs. bidding economics, eCPM optimization, and fill management
• Yield-Optimization Mindset — Data-driven, instrumentation-first, comfortable running structured experiments and reading P&L impact.
• Commercial Instincts — Has closed direct brand or agency deals; can pitch a competitive gaming audience to advertisers and translate inventory into commercial value.
• Cross-Functional Operator — Works fluently with product, engineering, FP&A, and developer relations; can drive alignment without authority.
• Builder Mentality — Comfortable in 0-to-1 ambiguity, creates structure where none exists, and treats this as building a business not running a function.

Experience 

• 7–9 years in ad monetization, ad sales, ad operations, programmatic, or yield management at a mobile gaming, app, or publisher company
• Hands-on experience with AppLovin MAX, Google Ad Manager (GAM), or equivalent mediation platforms; direct waterfall/bidding configuration experience.
• Demonstrated track record of growing ad revenue at scale (e.g., 25%+ eCPM lift, multi-million-dollar incremental ARR, or new placement launches).
• Experience scaling rewarded video and/or interstitial ad formats in a live mobile app.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree with a strong academic record.

Total Starting Compensation including Base + Bonus: $255,000

Location: Hybrid in New York, NY

Travel Requirement: Less than 10% 

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