About the Role
The Principal Producer will own end-to-end production of video and photo projects across TrendyMinds' client roster. This is a senior individual contributor position for a seasoned producer who is ready to run productions from kickoff to final delivery with a high degree of independence, managing budgets, schedules, crew, client communication, and every moving piece in between.
The production landscape is changing quickly, and we need someone who isn't just keeping up but thinking ahead. The right candidate will bring a sophisticated understanding of how modern production workflows are evolving, a clear perspective on how AI and new tools can sharpen how we plan and deliver, and the vision to help guide our production practice through what comes next.
What You'll Do
- Complex Project Leadership: Oversees some of the most complex and high-profile commercial projects from concept through delivery. Manages the intersection of creative ambition, operational efficiency, and client satisfaction on work where the stakes are highest and the margin for error is smallest.
- Operational Strategy: Acts as the bridge between hands-on production work and high-level strategic planning. Aligns project goals with broader company objectives. Identifies and implements improvements to production workflows, processes, and tools that make the team more efficient and scalable.
- Budget Ownership: Manages budgets with precision to protect project margins and agency profitability. Balances creative ambition against financial realities, finds efficiencies without compromising quality, and ensures every production decision is made with the cost-to-value equation in mind.
- Team Mentorship: Provides leadership and mentorship to senior producers and other team members. Builds professional capability across the production team by sharing expertise, setting high standards, and creating opportunities for people to stretch into more complex work.
- Client Relationship Management: Cultivates and maintains relationships with key clients. Offers strategic insight and creative solutions that go beyond what the client asked for. Serves as a trusted escalation point when projects hit complexity that requires experienced judgment. Acts as a respected, go-to partner and problem-solver for clients while on set.
- Quality and Standards: Conducts regular reviews of project deliverables to ensure consistency, brand alignment, and overall excellence. Raises the production quality bar on the projects that matter most to the agency’s reputation.
- Business Development: Collaborates with leadership and business development teams to pitch new projects, expand client relationships, and identify growth opportunities for the production practice.
- AI-Forward Thinking: Champions the use of AI across production workflows to improve output quality, efficiency, and scale. Brings a forward-looking mindset to how AI tools can sharpen budgeting, scheduling, communication, and client-facing deliverables without losing the human judgment the work requires.
What We're Looking For
- Experience: 7+ years of professional production experience, ideally in an agency or production company environment, with a track record of leading high-profile, complex commercial work. Deep, hands-on expertise across all core production disciplines, including bidding, scheduling, crewing, location scouting, permitting, insurance, clearances, talent releases, on-set management, post handoff, and delivery.
- Strategic Judgment: A proven ability to see beyond the individual project. Can identify where production workflows, tools, and processes can be sharpened, and has the operational instincts to turn that perspective into actual change across a team.
- Production & AI Expertise: A sophisticated understanding of how modern production is evolving, including a clear, actionable perspective on how AI and new tools can be applied to planning, budgeting, communication, and delivery without compromising quality.
- Tools Proficiency: Advanced working knowledge of the following platforms and tools:
- Asana or comparable project management platform
- Production budgeting software and processes
- Frame.io
- Google Workspace
- Harvest or comparable time and expense tracking platform
- Call sheet and scheduling tools
- AI-assisted planning and drafting tools
- Client-Facing Skills: Excellent presentation and communication skills with a proven ability to build strong relationships with senior clients, handle hard conversations directly, and serve as a trusted strategic partner when projects get complicated.
- Financial Discipline: Strong budgeting instincts with the ability to build a production estimate that holds up, explain it clearly to a client, and manage actuals against it without surprises at the end.
- Leadership and Mentorship: A demonstrated ability to raise the skill level of the team around you. Sets a high bar, shares knowledge generously, and helps other producers grow into more complex work.
- Crew Network: An established network of directors, DPs, gaffers, grips, sound mixers, editors, and vendors you trust and can call on quickly for the right project at the right rate.
- Business Development Instincts: Comfortable contributing to pitches, expanding existing accounts, and spotting opportunities to grow the production practice.
- Composure: Shoots rarely go exactly to plan. Stays level, solves the problem, and keeps the day moving without rattling the crew or the client.
- AI Fluency: A demonstrated comfort and capability with AI tools as part of day-to-day work, using them to improve quality, move faster, and scale output effectively.
What makes TrendyMinds a great place to work
- Fully remote: We believe the best team is one that isn’t limited by proximity to a physical location. Whether it’s the West Coast or the East Coast, we work with team members across all of the U.S. time zones.
- Collaborative team environment: Your voice is important, and we believe the best projects include contributions from everyone.
- Great benefits: 30 paid days off and 401(k) matching. What more could you ask? Oh yeah, we cover 100% of health insurance premiums for all team members and 50% for their spouses and dependents.
- Flexible schedule: Some people are early birds who love collaborating in-person at our offices. Others are night owls who enjoy working from home. We are flexible to accommodate different work styles, times, and locations- within reason and the needs of our clients - of course!
- New equipment: In order to produce incredible work, we have to have incredible equipment. Sorry if you were hoping for a 7-year-old PC. That’s just not our style.
- Philanthropy: We like to do our part to help our community. With our philanthropy committee and donation matching system, we offer you the resources you need to make a difference.
Our Values
At TrendyMinds, we aim to hire people who share our values. They are at the center of how we treat each other and our clients, and they act as our guideposts for every decision.
Know the Why behind the What.
We aim to be as honest and transparent as possible with our team and clients. The idea of Why lives at the heart of our LOGIQ process and grounds us with clear reasons for the decisions we make. (You will learn more about our LOGIQ process if you join our team.)
Put relationships first.
We not me. For more than 25 years, we've grown a business built on strong relationships with clients. But we also know that developing trust and a collaborative spirit is equally important to cultivate a healthy team that loves having fun.
Think Ahead and push boundaries.
Our tagline isn’t Think Ahead for nothing. We bring a contagious passion to our craft, always searching for creative ways to challenge ourselves and deliver results, even though things don’t always go according to plan. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, improve, and try again.
Bring your full self.
Show up. Each of us has something unique to contribute. In all that we do, we celebrate diversity and strive to create an equitable, inclusive environment so that everyone feels a sense of belonging.
