Social Media Manager - 6 month ftc

PortSwigger exists to enable the world to secure the web. We build the tools practitioners trust, the knowledge that trains security professionals, and a community that makes anyone who cares about security better, so anyone can make the internet safer. Our products are crafted with care, backed by deep research, and we lead through generous innovation: winning by setting the bar higher and sharing what we create, turning commercial success into wider positive impact.

Our culture didn't happen by accident, it was built deliberately, and it's something we protect with the same care we put into everything we make. We default to trust enabling brilliant people doing brilliant work, free from micromanagement. We aim for excellence, and we do it with care; performance and compassion go hand in hand. Joy, mastery and purpose belong together here and if the work stops feeling good, we take that seriously.

Growth is our commercial engine: bringing new customers on board, keeping them delighted, and telling our story to the market. Growth is split into Sales, Customer Experience (Relationship Management, Customer Success and Tech Support), Marketing and Special Ops. Collectively owning pipeline, retention, advocacy and the go-to-market playbooks that scale PortSwigger.

We're bringing in six months of contracted expertise to make PortSwigger and Burp Suite one of the most engaging voices in web security. You'll own how we show up across social and emerging digital channels. That covers the plan behind it, the creative that brings it to life, and the evidence of what's working. We want that presence to be creative, conversational, credible with a technical audience, and a natural route to people trying our products.

You'll have more raw material than most social managers ever get: world-class research, researchers and developers with real credibility, a brand people trust with a personality to match, and formats we've already started, like Burp Shorts. The job is to turn that into a plan, and then into content and conversation people want to watch, share and talk about. This is a new space for us, so we want you to show us what good looks like.

What you'll own

• A social plan built on outcomes. You'll set out what each channel is for, who it's for and what we want it to achieve, and agree goals and baselines early. You'll turn launches, research and campaigns into a social plan and calendar that sits within our wider content plan, so social is planned with purpose rather than run post by post.
• Creative that earns attention. You'll come up with ideas, posts, threads, clips, short-form video and live formats that hold up with an audience that can spot fluff a mile off. You'll test new formats and channels (Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, and wherever attention moves next) against the plan.
• Real conversation, not broadcast. You'll own our day-to-day presence across our social channels: replies, comments and discussion, with calm judgement when a thread turns critical. You'll also bring social into our community spaces, such as Discord, alongside our community team.
• More credible voices. You'll make it easy for our researchers, colleagues and advocates to show up in public, and amplify them when they do.
• Learning from what performs. You'll run a regular rhythm of reviewing what's performing and why, measured on engagement quality, product trials and security leader interest rather than follower counts. You'll put more behind what works, stop what doesn't, and share what you learn with the wider team. You'll steer our external social partners on the same evidence.

What good looks like

• Month 1: you know the audiences and channels, have agreed a social plan with goals and baselines for each channel, and have a daily rhythm in place.
• Month 3: the plan is running, tests are live on newer channels and formats, a regular performance review is shaping what we do next, and you've made a recommendation on external support.
• Month 6: there's clear improvement against the goals, we have a few formats we're known for, and a playbook (plan, what works, what doesn't) is ready for whoever comes next.

How you'll work

You'll work with lots of people across Marketing and the wider business: researchers, developers, product, sales, and the teams planning our content, campaigns, launches and community. Much of the best material sits with other people, so a big part of the job is drawing it out and making it easy for them to contribute. You'll bring back what you're hearing from the audience to the people who need it. 

You'll use AI every day to listen, create, analyse and iterate, with care over accuracy and tone. Paid social, PR, events and community programmes are owned elsewhere, and you'll work closely with each.

• Proof you can do it.
• Channels you've owned or content you've made, with results you can show: posts that took off, an audience that got more engaged, a format that worked. Show us, don't tell us.
• Experience making newer channels or formats work, such as short-form video, Reddit, YouTube, live formats or emerging platforms.
• You plan for outcomes, not just output.
• You've built a social plan with a clear purpose and goals for each channel, tied to what the business needed.
• You review performance regularly and can point to things you scaled, changed or stopped because of what the data showed, beyond vanity metrics.
• Creativity that works for technical people.
• Ideas and content that are creative and credible at the same time. Security, developer, gaming, tech media or creator audiences all count. What matters is that a sceptical audience engaged.
• Opinions. Look at what we do in public today and tell us what you'd do differently.
• Good judgement in public.
• You handle comments, critical moments and escalation calmly, and you know when to pull in an expert.
• An AI-native way of working.
• You use AI every day to listen, create and analyse, can show how, and know what it gets wrong.
• A collaborative, low-ego style.
• You bring researchers, colleagues, advocates and partners along with you.
• You're comfortable working with autonomy over a short window: you set a rhythm quickly and hand over clearly.
• The practical bits.
• You'll work from our Knutsford HQ on the agreed office pattern for the full six months.
• You're available to start within a few weeks and are looking for a six-month fixed-term engagement.
• You have the right to work in the UK.
• Please include links to channels and content you've run.

Security, bug bounty, developer-audience, video editing, creator or agency-steering experience is a plus, not a requirement. We don't set a minimum number of years: show us the evidence.

At PortSwigger, we believe people should be paid what they're truly worth — not just what we could get away with or what the market dictates. That's why we pay above the market rate, and review it regularly.

In our 2025 survey, 80% of Swiggers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their reward — against a YouGov benchmark of 40% for knowledge workers. The philosophy works.

Want to know more? Explore our reward philosophy.