Career Path of a Director of Operations at Linqia
Melanie's career path, beginning with "jobs, like working in a cafe," unexpectedly led to a digital marketing role at a small startup, providing valuable on-the-job learning. This experience, coupled with subsequent roles at Linqia—starting as a customer success manager, transitioning to the paid and measurement team, and ultimately leading three teams in a senior operations role—demonstrates a trajectory of growth driven by both experience and initiative.
Career Development, Digital Marketing, Paid Advertising, Leadership, Operations Management
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Melanie Archer
Director of Operations
Linqia
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
N/A
English, Writing & Education, English
Advertising, Communications & Marketing
Operations and Project Management
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Pell Grant Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Melanie's career path highlights a successful transition from an English major with limited formal internships to a Director of Operations role. Her early experience in digital marketing for a small startup, despite lacking traditional internships, provided valuable hands-on skills.
2. Her journey emphasizes the importance of learning on the job and adapting to new challenges. Starting as a Customer Success Manager, she progressed through various roles (Paid & Measurement team, leadership roles) showcasing initiative and adaptability.
3. Melanie's experience demonstrates that career progression isn't always linear and that valuable skills can be acquired through diverse experiences. Her path showcases the possibility of combining seemingly unrelated skillsets (English major to digital marketing) for successful career development.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Please include any internships or jobs you had before your current role.
In college, I majored in English. Most of my experience while I was in school involved jobs like working in a cafe or, at one point, having a remote copywriting job writing blog posts. Nothing too crazy.
I didn't really get the opportunity for a workplace-based internship, but I felt that wasn't critical to my ability to get a job. I was working remotely for a very small startup, basically doing all of their digital marketing. I learned that on the job and gained good exposure to thinking about social presence, website copy, and different marketing efforts.
I did a lot of email marketing for that company. Ultimately, at 22, I realized I was working from home in a new city, didn't know anyone, and needed more exposure to other human beings. So, I interviewed for the company I'm currently working at.
I started as a Customer Success Manager, running creator marketing campaigns for brands. I'm still at that company and have moved through a couple of different roles. From Customer Success Manager, I moved into the paid and measurement team, which is where most of my background is and where I'm most comfortable.
That team was responsible for amplifying creator content in paid social. I became comfortable running paid ads, working with third-party measurement vendors, and tracking everything. A couple of years into it, I was offered a leadership role on that team.
From there, I expanded into a more senior operations role. I now manage three teams within our organization. At this point, I'm managing managers who are working with their teams to execute operations-based roles within our company.