PR and Communications Specialist

About Drumbeat

Drumbeat is an AI-first PR and communications platform created for fast-growing businesses. It helps teams shape believable narratives, connect stories with the right journalists, run campaigns, and monitor media coverage so their brand stays visible to the audiences that matter.

The company is a pre-seed startup, launched just two months ago, already working with early customers and generating revenue. It was built within New & Improved, the Auckland venture studio behind Tracksuit, Ideally, and Aether.

About the role

In this position, you will be the main contact for the customers in your portfolio and help turn the platform into real media results. You’ll bring PR capability to clients who do not have that capacity internally.

This is a communications role with a different shape. You’ll guide customers through Drumbeat, support them with pitch writing when needed, coach them as they learn, identify opportunities they may miss, refine work before it is sent out, and stay involved from the first pitch through to coverage.

Each customer will have distinct goals, and your task is to apply your PR craft to help them achieve those outcomes.

Key responsibilities

• Create pitches, releases, and customer-ready content that is polished and ready for outreach.
• Coach customers on how to make a pitch compelling, what makes a story newsworthy, and when to pause versus press ahead.
• Assess customer narratives, releases, and other content, improving quality, strengthening the angle, and challenging pieces that are not yet ready.
• Identify story angles and opportunities that customers may not recognise on their own.
• Handle direct pitching when customers need hands-on support, especially early in their journey with Drumbeat.
• Work with customers and their teams to map out media releases and content schedules.
• Share learnings from day-to-day work back into the product so manual tasks can eventually be built into Drumbeat.

What you will bring

• Hands-on media pitching experience, including building journalist relationships and pitching stories directly yourself.
• A background in PR agency work or in-house communications where you were actively doing the work, not only managing others.
• Experience placing stories in markets beyond New Zealand.
• A natural coaching approach that allows you to teach founders how to write effective pitches.
• Strong judgment about what makes a story effective and when a piece still needs work.
• Comfort with uncertainty and a practical, execution-first mindset even when the brief is still taking shape.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting high-growth startups or scale-ups as clients or customers.
• Exposure to technology, SaaS, consumer brand, or B2B media environments.
• Established journalist connections across tech and business media in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, or the US.

What Drumbeat offers

• Salary of NZ$120,000 to NZ$130,000, depending on experience.
• A permanent role in a key function with room to grow as the company expands.
• Auckland-based, in-person work when needed, with direct access to the founders and customers.
• Daily use of Drumbeat, with the opportunity to influence how the product develops.
• Support from New & Improved, including an operator network and studio backing from the team behind Tracksuit, Ideally, and Aether.

Additional information

This is a long-term, high-impact position and an essential part of how Drumbeat operates. Customer success in this role is central to the business. The company values what you can build more than where you have previously built it, and encourages applications from people who may not match every requirement.

How to express interest

If this role appeals to you, you are invited to apply. If you would like to learn more, you can also reach out directly to the team by email.