Careers

Join the people writing about watchmaking properly.

Working with Dial & Crown

Dial & Crown is building a publication for readers who care about horology. We are a focused, deliberate team: fewer stories, better researched, written to last. We pay competitively, because the people who know this industry properly are worth keeping. These salaries are serious money, and they buy serious standards: every role below asks for proof, and the hiring process asks for work.

All salary ranges below are annual, in US dollars, for full-time roles. Actual offers reflect experience and location. We review ranges yearly against comparable editorial and luxury-industry roles.

These are remote roles. The Managing Editor may alternatively be based in Geneva.

Editorial: open roles

Managing Editor

Salary: $150,000 to $185,000. You own the editorial calendar, commission and edit across the six desks, and hold every story to the publication's verification standard. The standard of everything we publish is your responsibility. This is a leadership role for someone who has run a newsroom section and wants to run a publication.

What we ask for

Ten or more years in specialist publishing or luxury journalism, with at least five of them running a desk or section.
A record of commissioning and editing original, reported journalism: not aggregation, not press-release rewrites.
Proven experience editing for factual accuracy. You can describe, concretely, the verification process you run before a story publishes.
Working fluency in horology: current references, key calibres and the major houses, known well enough to catch a wrong claim in a draft.
Experience managing writers and freelance contributors across time zones, in a remote newsroom.
Evidence your leadership moved the needle: audience growth, awards, citations, subscriber numbers, or a reputation your previous title still trades on.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, a full quarter of the editorial calendar is commissioned across all six desks, every desk lead can state your editorial and verification standards without prompting, and no story has published without passing them. You have shipped at least six major features and established a weekly commissioning rhythm the team sustains.

Watch Editor

Salary: $115,000 to $145,000. You lead coverage of novelties and manufacture news, attend the major fairs, and maintain the house relationships that keep our reporting first-hand. You are the publication's authority on what is being made right now.

What we ask for

Five or more years on a watch beat at a specialist publication, with bylines to prove it.
Command of the current catalogue landscape: major houses, current references, pricing, key complications.
Existing relationships with manufacture press offices, and attendance at the major fairs: Watches and Wonders, Geneva Watch Days and the independent showcases.
The ability to write a reported novelty story the same day, sourced and accurate.
A clean record on the facts: corrections history matters here, and fewer is better.
References from two editors you have worked for.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, you have covered a full release cycle from announcement to analysis with primary sourcing, your press contacts are mapped and current, the fair-season plan is in place, and every novelty story you have filed is error-free. Readers should be able to feel the difference in authority.

Staff Writer, Horology

Salary: $85,000 to $110,000. You report and write across sections, from explainers to market coverage. Curiosity matters more than a contact book: we will open the doors, you bring the hunger to learn what is behind them.

What we ask for

Three or more years of published reporting in watches, luxury, or specialist journalism, with clips.
Demonstrable technical literacy: you can explain a calibre, a complication, or a finishing technique accurately, to a reader who knows watches and to one who is learning.
Copy that files clean: ready for line edit, not structural rescue.
Comfort working from primary sources: press materials, catalogues, patent filings, archives.
A pace you can sustain: four to six reported stories a month at our standard.
A portfolio showing original reporting or genuine depth, not repackaged announcements.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, you have filed at least twelve reported stories, every one verified to our standard with no corrections issued, and at least one explainer that readers are still linking to. Your editor knows your strengths and has stopped rewriting your structure.

Horology Correspondent, Vintage and Auctions

Salary: $95,000 to $125,000. You cover the salerooms and the secondary market with figures reported as the houses report them and analysis that is unmistakably ours. You know the difference between a catalogue note and a judgment.

What we ask for

Four or more years covering auctions, collecting, or vintage markets, with published results coverage.
Working relationships with at least two major auction houses' watch departments.
Fluency in market data: results, estimates, premiums, reference taxonomy, provenance questions.
A portfolio of analysis that is genuinely your own, not summaries of catalogue notes.
Access to collector and dealer networks, and discretion with unattributed information.
Attendance at the major saleroom seasons: Geneva, New York, Hong Kong.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, you have covered a full auction season end to end, every figure verified against house results, built the season calendar for the year ahead, and published at least two pieces of analysis that say something no one else said. Dealers and collectors are reading you.

Media Relations: open roles

Head of Media Relations

Salary: $130,000 to $160,000. You build and run the publication's press function: manufacture press offices, embargo management, review-loan logistics, and the relationships that keep our reporting first-hand. First-hand reporting is the product; you are the person who makes it possible.

What we ask for

Eight or more years in luxury or media communications, with watch industry experience strongly preferred.
A live contact book across manufacture press offices, independent ateliers, and fair organizers.
Experience running embargo and review-loan operations: accreditation, logistics, scheduling, returns.
A demonstrated ability to secure access: interviews, manufacture visits, embargoed materials.
The ability to build the press function from scratch: systems, calendars, relationships, reporting.
Professional discretion, and an absolute understanding of the line between PR and editorial independence.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, the press function runs on your systems: the embargo calendar is current, the loan process tracks every watch from request to return, no accreditation has been missed, and the editorial team has the access it needs for the quarter ahead. Press offices know your name.

Media Relations Specialist

Salary: $85,000 to $110,000. You keep the press desk running day to day: accreditation, press materials, interview scheduling, and the manufacturer contacts our reporters rely on. Details are the job; dropped details are the failure mode.

What we ask for

Three or more years in communications, PR, or editorial support roles, in luxury or media preferred.
Exceptional organization: accreditation windows, loan calendars, interview schedules held without drops.
Working knowledge of the major manufactures and their press structures.
Professional written English; French or German is an asset for Geneva correspondence.
Reliability under fair-season pressure. Watches and Wonders week is the stress test.
Judgment: you know what to escalate and what to handle.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, you have run the support desk through a full release cycle with zero missed accreditations and zero lost loans, every manufacturer contact record is current, and the editors trust your calendar without checking it. Nothing has fallen through your hands.

Partnerships Manager

Salary: $100,000 to $130,000 plus commission. You develop brand partnerships and sponsorships with advertisers who fit the readership, working with the commercial side of the business. Editorial independence is non-negotiable: you sell the platform, never the coverage.

What we ask for

Five or more years selling advertising or partnerships for a luxury or specialist media brand.
A record of closing: you can name the advertisers you brought in and the revenue they delivered.
A network among luxury advertisers: watch brands, auction houses, adjacent luxury categories.
The ability to build partnership proposals and rate cards: commercial thinking, not just relationships.
A self-directed pipeline: you build your own book from day one.
An absolute understanding that editorial independence is the product you are selling. One compromised line and the whole thing is worthless.

What success looks like in your first 90 days

By day 90, you have a qualified pipeline covering at least two quarters, proposals out to named advertisers, your first closed partnership or a signed letter of intent, and a revenue forecast the business can plan against. The market knows you are here.

How to apply

Send a brief note about who you are, what you do, and a link to published work or a portfolio. Editorial applicants should include two clips that show original reporting or deep subject knowledge. Media relations applicants should describe a press relationship they built and kept. Partnerships applicants should describe a deal they closed and the revenue it brought in.

The hiring process

Application review. We read everything ourselves.
First conversation. Thirty minutes with the person you would work for.
Paid trial assignment. A piece of real work, representative of the role: a reported short piece for editorial candidates, a press plan for media relations candidates, a partnership proposal for the partnerships candidate. Paid at a fixed rate whether or not we hire you, because your time has value even when the answer is no.
Final interview. We talk through the trial work, your approach, and your references.
Offer. Salary set within the band, reflecting the experience and the trial.

The contact channel for applications is being finalized by the publisher. Once confirmed, it will be listed on our Contact page under the Careers category.

Equal opportunity

Dial & Crown hires on merit and welcomes applicants of all backgrounds. We consider qualified applicants regardless of race, gender, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic.