Director of SEM

At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact.

We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started.

As we scale globally, performance marketing has become the primary engine of that growth. Search is at the core of how learners find us - and SEM is our largest and highest-impact acquisition channel, with a nine-figure annual spend, and growing significantly YoY. To continue outperforming, we need a world-class leader to own it.

We’re now looking for a Director of SEM to own strategy, performance, and the future of our search acquisition channel. This is a senior, strategic role for a performance marketing leader who has operated SEM at scale inside a high-growth consumer tech or marketplace/e-commerce business.

You’ll lead a growing team of specialists and partner with Data Science, MarTech, Brand, and a dedicated double-digit team at Google to push the boundaries of what’s possible in search. You’ll also be among a select group of advertisers piloting a new ad offering with a leading AI platform, shaping how SEM evolves at a global scale.

• Own the channel strategy: Define and own Preply’s global SEM strategy across Google Search, PMax, and emerging AI-powered ad formats. Set the vision for how we grow the channel - expanding keyword coverage, improving bidding sophistication, and deploying budget with increasing efficiency. Decide how to balance automation with human judgment, and where to invest in new capabilities vs. doubling down on what works. Stay at the frontier: shape how Preply thinks about the future of search as AI reshapes user behaviour and ad formats.
• Drive performance and scale: Own the channel KPIs while maintaining or improving ROI. Oversee keyword architecture and automation across keywords, languages, and markets. Lead LTV-based bidding strategy in partnership with the Data Science team, pushing the state of the art in how we value and bid for users. Expand SEM coverage into non-language subjects as Preply grows beyond its core vertical.
• Build and lead the team: Lead a team of specialists, setting direction, developing capability, and creating clear accountability. Define how the team operates: priorities, org structure, and collaboration model with enabling functions.
• Shape how we use AI: Define and embed an AI vision for the SEM team: from how individual team members leverage AI tools to increase personal productivity, to designing agentic systems for campaign management workflows. You'll set the standard for what AI-enabled SEM looks like at Preply, and continuously push the team's ambition for what's possible.
• Lead through influence: Partner cross-functionally with teams in the business, to build infrastructure that enables scale, not just campaigns. Align Brand and Growth teams around how SEM and PMax work together for maximum impact. Translate channel performance into clear business impact for the VP of Performance Marketing & Growth and senior leadership, and build data-driven cases for investment.

• Director-level experience in SEM or Performance Marketing, with a track record of channel ownership at significant scale & double-digit million budget.
• Deep, hands-on understanding of Google Search, Smart Bidding, and PMax - including how to structure, feed, and govern PMax campaigns at scale.
• Experience designing or overseeing SEM automation at scale - you understand how the system works, not just what it produces.
• Proven ability to operate in a high-growth e-commerce or consumer tech environment, where targets are ambitious and the pace is fast.
• Experience working with data science or engineering teams on performance systems - LTV bidding, prediction models, or automation pipelines.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to connect long-term vision to day-to-day execution and remove blockers.
• Comfortable stepping into an existing team and earning credibility - leading through expertise and direction, not task ownership.
• Experience working in or across multi-language, multi-market environments.