Shorts Editor

About Us

The Stokes Twins are one of the largest creator-led entertainment brands on YouTube, known for high-energy storytelling, ambitious concepts, and culture-driven content that reaches hundreds of millions of viewers each month. Our team thrives on creativity, collaboration, and making a positive impact through content.

As we continue expanding into a next-generation entertainment company, short-form content remains one of the primary engines of audience growth, discovery, and brand expansion.

About the Role

The Shorts Editor owns the editing and creative execution of our short-form content across YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and emerging platforms. This is not a basic clipping role. Working closely with the Shorts Strategist, you will transform raw footage, ideas, trends, and long-form moments into highly engaging short-form content optimized for retention, engagement, and subscriber growth.

The ideal candidate combines elite editing skills with strong creative instincts, audience psychology, platform expertise, and AI-assisted workflows. You should be capable of taking a short from concept to final export with minimal oversight while consistently delivering review-ready work that exceeds expectations.

Mission

The mission of the Shorts Editor is to make short-form content perform better. By engineering stronger hooks, clearer storytelling, better pacing, and more satisfying payoffs, this role helps turn viewers into subscribers, followers, and long-term fans of the Stokes universe. Every edit should be built to stop the swipe, hold attention, and maximize audience engagement.

Key Responsibilities

Short-Form Editing & Creative Execution

• Edit high-performing content across YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and emerging platforms.
• Own the edit from first assembly through final export, including pacing, captions, graphics, VFX, sound design, music, and final polish.
• Create platform-native content that feels current, visual, fast-paced, and culturally relevant.
• Deliver review-ready cuts that require refinement rather than rescue.

Hook Engineering & Retention

• Own the first frame, first second, and opening structure of every short.
• Build content toward an 85%+ "People Stayed to Watch" benchmark whenever the footage and premise support it.
• Develop multiple hook variations, opening structures, and creative approaches for priority content.
• Improve retention through stronger storytelling, pacing, visual clarity, curiosity, and payoff.

Storytelling & Editorial Judgment

• Structure every short as a mini-story with a clear promise, escalation, payoff, and loop.
• Select the strongest performances, reactions, moments, and visual beats from the footage.
• Continuously improve comedic timing, visual rhythm, sound design, and audience engagement.
• Make content understandable instantly while remaining globally appealing and highly shareable.

Content Recycling & Platform Adaptation

• Transform long-form moments into standalone short-form stories.
• Identify, repurpose, and amplify high-potential content from both new releases and the back catalog.
• Create platform-specific variations when needed across Shorts, TikTok, Reels, and emerging platforms.
• Stay current on trends, creator ecosystems, and platform behavior without simply copying what already works.

Analytics & Iteration

• Use retention data, engagement metrics, and audience behavior to improve future edits.
• Test hooks, pacing styles, captions, openings, and creative formats.
• Translate performance insights into stronger editing decisions.
• Continuously refine workflows that improve output quality and efficiency.

AI-Powered Creative Innovation

• Use AI to accelerate ideation, hook development, visual exploration, captioning, asset creation, and creative iteration.
• Generate alternate hooks, openings, captions, endings, and edit variations quickly.
• Explore emerging tools and workflows that improve creative quality, speed, and scalability.

What You'll Own

• Help turn short-form content into one of the company's strongest subscriber growth engines.
• Improve retention, engagement, and viewer satisfaction through stronger editing decisions.
• Deliver review-ready content that consistently exceeds the "good enough" standard.
• Create scalable editing systems, workflows, and content variations that improve output quality.
• Help the team identify, test, and scale winning short-form formats faster.
• Raise the overall creative bar of the Stokes short-form ecosystem.

Who You Are

• Proven experience editing high-performing Shorts, TikToks, Reels, or social-first content at scale.
• Deep understanding of hooks, retention, audience psychology, pacing, and platform-native editing.
• Strong instincts for comedic timing, visual storytelling, sound design, and viewer engagement.
• Able to create multiple hook and edit variations quickly.
• Expert-level proficiency in Premiere Pro and strong experience with motion graphics, VFX, and post-production workflows.
• Comfortable using analytics to improve creative decisions.
• Aggressive about adopting AI tools and emerging workflows to improve quality and speed.
• Highly organized, fast-moving, collaborative, and comfortable operating in a high-performance environment.
• Comfortable owning outcomes rather than simply executing tasks.

The expected base pay range for this position is $90,000 to $140,000 per year. Actual pay will vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.