Senior Manager, Ad Ops - Mattel Digital Studio

Mattel•El Segundo, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Mattel Game Studios (MGS) is building a digital games business inside one of the world's most iconic toy and entertainment companies. We publish mobile games — both partner-developed live titles like Uno, Phase 10, and Skip-Bo (via Mattel163) and original IP-led games launching in 2026 and beyond. We're a lean 22-person studio scaling toward 30 in 2026, with a $1B digital games business as our 2030 target. Every hire matters. Every hire ships. We're hiring our first dedicated Ad Monetization & Operations leader to own in-app advertising revenue across our publishing portfolio. You'll be a player-coach from day one — personally configuring waterfalls, running experiments, and writing the SQL — while building the playbooks, tooling, and partner relationships that scale into a team behind you. This is a builder role for someone who wants to own a discipline end-to-end, not inherit one.

Requirements

5+ years in mobile F2P ad monetization or ad operations, with hands-on ownership of waterfalls, mediation, and yield optimization. This is not transferable from web ad ops, programmatic display, or ad-network sales-side experience.
Hands-on fluency in mediation platforms — AppLovin MAX, ironSource LevelPlay, AdMob, or equivalent. You can configure a waterfall in your sleep and explain the difference between in-app bidding and traditional waterfall to a designer.
Demonstrable revenue impact. You will be asked for specific examples — a placement test that lifted ARPDAU by X%, a network swap that improved fill in geo Y, a frequency change that traded Z impressions for W retention. Bring numbers.
SQL fluency. You can write your own queries against BigQuery or equivalent. You don't wait for an analyst.
Experimentation rigor. You understand power calculations, segmentation traps, and the difference between a real lift and a noisy one.
Hybrid IAP/IAA experience. You've worked on titles where IAP was the primary revenue driver and IAA was the wedge — and you know how rewarded video can lift LTV without cannibalizing IAP.
Casual or puzzle genre experience preferred. Match-3, card, board, or hybrid-casual specifically. Mid-core or hyper-casual experience is a complement, not a substitute.
Working knowledge of post-ATT measurement — SKAdNetwork, conversion value mapping, and how ad LTV gets attributed in a privacy-constrained world.
AI-augmented workflow. You actively use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, etc.) in your daily work and can articulate where they help and where they don't. We don't expect you to build AI; we expect you to use it well.
Builder's mindset. You've operated in environments where the playbook didn't exist yet, and you wrote it. You're comfortable being the only person in your function and want it that way for now.
Brand-aware judgment. You can hold the line on ad quality and brand safety against revenue pressure when it matters.

Nice To Haves

Experience with at least one IP-led or licensed title.
Direct work with a China-based ad ops or development partner.
Familiarity with publisher-platform tooling (Singular, Mixpanel, Heroic Labs / Nakama, BigQuery).
Prior experience hiring or growing into a team-of-one-to-three lead role.

Responsibilities

Own ad revenue end-to-end. Configure and optimize mediation waterfalls and in-app bidding across our publishing portfolio.
Manage ad units, placements, frequency caps, and pacing across rewarded video, interstitials, banners, and offerwalls.
Hit ARPDAU, eCPM, fill-rate, and ad LTV targets you set with the Director of Product.
Run the experimentation engine. Design and ship A/B tests on placement, frequency, format, and waterfall configuration. Build a hypothesis-test-readout cadence the rest of the studio can rely on. Bring statistical rigor — every claim defended with data.
Manage network and mediation partnerships. Own the relationships with AppLovin, Unity, AdMob, ironSource, Meta, Mintegral, Pangle, and others. Negotiate floors, evaluate new networks, manage SDK upgrades and integration cycles, and resolve revenue discrepancies.
Build the measurement stack. Partner with Analytics to wire ad revenue into BigQuery, Mixpanel, and Singular. Stand up dashboards that the LiveOps PMs and Growth team rely on daily. Own ad LTV measurement and the IAA-IAP interplay model.
Apply AI as a force multiplier. Use modern AI tooling to compress the work — anomaly detection, SQL generation, A/B test summarization, partner correspondence, vendor evaluation. Stay current on AI-enabled ad-tech and bring credible recommendations to the table.
Coordinate with UA and LiveOps. Ad LTV feeds UA bidding; ad placements affect retention and IAP conversion. Operate across these seams with the Sr. Director of Growth and the LiveOps PMs without dropping balls.
Partner with Mattel163. Our Beijing-based partner team runs ad ops on Uno, Phase 10, and Skip-Bo. You'll establish the working model — share learnings, align on standards, divide-and-conquer geographies and titles.
Champion player experience. These are family-friendly games tied to iconic brands. Brand safety, ad quality, age-appropriate content, and frequency discipline are non-negotiable. You will say no to revenue that compromises the brand.
Build the playbook. Document standards for new title launches: SDK integration checklists, placement design principles, A/B test protocols, network onboarding, incident response. Make it possible to scale this discipline to 3-5 titles without losing rigor.