Creative Director / Story Crafter
At a glance
Leadership Creative role at Sauna. San Francisco · full-time · $120,000–$220,000 base.
Growth Roles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Own Sauna’s public story by drawing it from the founder and product, refining it, and putting it into the world
- Turn the human reason to care into visual work across motion, film, and the broader creative surface
- Handle motion and video from concept through shooting, design, editing, and publication
- Set the visual and editorial direction for Instagram and social channels, then keep it consistent
- Build repeatable AI-assisted workflows with Sauna, Claude Code, or similar tools to publish high-quality work quickly
What you bring
- Show work that moved people and explain the creative decisions behind its impact
- Bring strong motion-design ability with HTML, CSS, and code alongside tools such as After Effects, C4D, or Blender
- Have built personal pipelines using Claude Code or similar products and AI creative tools, beyond one-off prompts
- Take ideas from a blank page to published work without needing close management
Who this fits
You’ll suit this role if you can create as well as direct, stay hands-on in the timeline, and give a product a clear emotional story. The job is full-time and in person at the Presidio office five days a week, so you must live in the Bay Area or relocate before starting. US work authorization is required; Sauna is open to O-1 or J-1 sponsorship for exceptional candidates.
From the employer
⚠️ Please read first
This is a full-time, in-person role based in San Francisco (Presidio) - we work from the office 5 days a week.
You must be based in the Bay Area or willing to relocate before starting.
We require US work authorisation, but are open to O-1 or J-1 visa sponsorship for exceptional candidates.
About Sauna by Wordware
Every tool you use was built as an island, so you became the glue between them. You carry a name from Gmail into the CRM, a time from the CRM into Calendly, a note from Calendly into a doc. AI showed up and mostly became an eleventh window to paste into.
Sauna is a hybrid of AI and software standing on one shared brain. It holds your context and hands you real software built on top of it. You talk to it like a chatbot and use what it builds like an app: software for the path you repeat, AI for the edge that never repeats. Keep it to yourself, or share the brain with your team.
The clearest way to see it is a tool doing what its whole category cannot. An ordinary Calendly shows a stranger your free slots. Your Calendly writes the invite email itself, because it knows how the two of you know each other, and it offers a board member the slot over your gym block, because it knows which of your busy hours bend and for whom.
Wordware is the team behind it, 15 people backed by Spark Capital, Felicis, and Y Combinator with a $30M seed, the largest in YC's history. We build from an office in the Presidio, fifty metres from Crissy Field beach, and we work absurdly hard because we can see and feel the outcome every day.
About the Role:
We're the first multiplayer AI, and our product is years ahead of how we tell its story. We ship something remarkable most weeks and it barely leaves the building. That's the gap you close.
We're looking for a story crafter. Not a video editor, not a social manager, not a brand cop. Someone who owns the narrative of what Sauna is in the world: pulls it out of the founder's head, adds their own taste, and pushes it out until people feel it. You tell that story beautifully with visuals: motion, film, and the whole creative surface.
What You'll Do:
The narrative of Sauna, in the world: extract the story from the founder + product, sharpen it with your own POV, make it land everywhere.
The story, told in visuals: find the human reason anyone should care, then make it move people. The heart of the role.
Motion + video, end to end: concept, shoot, motion design, edit, publish. Hands-on in the timeline.
Instagram + our social presence: set the visual/editorial direction and keep it coherent.
Creative pipelines that output at volume: build repeatable systems (Sauna itself, Claude Code, AI tooling) so we ship a lot, fast. Volume with taste.
Who You Are:
Crafts stories that move people; can point to work that traveled and say why it worked.
Real motion-design chops — and in the AI era that now includes HTML/CSS/code, not just After Effects/C4D/Blender.
Could be the creator, not just the director (Johnny Harris style), or cast + direct one. Either way knows what makes that video work.
Has built with Claude Code (or similar) + AI creative tooling — wired up their own pipelines, not just prompted once.
Takes an idea from zero to published without being managed there.
Compensation & Benefits:
Base salary: $120K–$220K + meaningful early-stage equity + health, dental, 401(k), considerable PTO, gym budget, lunch.
The Process:
We keep our process simple. Exceptional candidates go from first touch to offer within 2 weeks.
1. Application: Submit your resume and answer a few short questions.
2. 15-minute intro call: Quick check to align on location, motivation, and logistics. If it's a go, we move fast from here.
3. Portfolio review & craft interview: Walk us through your work and the decisions behind it.
4. Final conversation: We answer your questions and scope out the work trial.
5. Work trial: Paid, in person, usually a few days to two weeks. You work on a real project with us. See how we work, see if it fits, both sides.
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