Podcast Audio Engineer Jobs: Career Info & Role Description

Interested in getting into podcasting? There are plenty of career opportunities in podcasting, where you end up depending on your interests and skills. A Podcast Audio Engineer career is for those of you who love to go in deep with audio through editing and technical skills. Read on to learn more about what an Audio Engineer does, and what skills they need to succeed.

What is a Podcast Audio Engineer?

In some cases, an audio engineer may mean different things to different people.
Overall, you can consider a podcast audio engineer is all about technical aspects of audio production, and in this case, specifically for podcasts. When it comes down to it, they are the ones who run the recording, editing, mixing and mastering of audio content. Audio Engineers are in charge of making sure the final output is a high-quality sound that gives listeners a professional experience.

Here at Lower Street, we consider our audio engineers a post-production role, working to tie the final episode all together. Others may identify as audio engineers but focus on their roles as sound designers, recording engineers, editors, or producers.

What do they do?

A podcast audio engineer has a few key responsibilities:

1. Recording: Audio engineers will advise on recording equipment and podcast studio setups. They’ll help you get prepared to optimize audio quality during recording sessions. In many cases, they can also set up and run equipment during in-person recordings.

2. Editing:  This can be done in collaboration with a producer or host. Audio engineers can clean up the raw audio by removing unwanted clips or background noise and working with a producer to edit for the narrative. This process often involves using digital audio workstations (DAWs) to manipulate the audio tracks, ensuring a smooth and engaging flow.

3. Mixing: audio engineers step in to balance different audio elements, such as dialogue, music, and sound effects. Engineers adjust levels, apply effects, and use equalization to create a cohesive sound that matches the brand voice, engages listeners and best serves the value of the content.

4. Mastering: their final step is mastering, which involves polishing the mixed audio to ensure it meets industry standards. This includes final adjustments to volume levels and ensuring consistency across episodes.
   

A great podcast audio engineer is essential to having a successful show. After all, high-quality audio can significantly affect listener retention and engagement, so you’ll want an audio engineer who does a great job. By handling the technical details, audio engineers allow podcasters to focus on content creation, thereby enhancing overall productivity.

What skills do you need to become a Podcast Audio Engineer?

If you are looking to become a podcast audio engineer, you should hone in on your technical and creative skills. 

Getting technical, you’ll want to be familiar with the best audio equipment in the industry, both for recording and editing. You’ll need to know how to select and set up the right equipment for different environments and different podcast formats. Then comes the editing, you’ll want to learn one (or two) DAWs and editing software. While Audacity is free, it can pay off to become familiar with one of the more professional tools like Adobe Audition or ProTools. Of course, beyond the tools, an audio engineer should also understand sound design, and what creates high-quality audio. 

Creativity can also play a big role in the audio engineer’s day-to-day. An engineer will work side by side with producers to design a creative narrative. But an audio engineer can add their own touch with creative sound design, music, and effects. Overall it is good to know how to enhance a story through additional audio elements.

Overall, it’s best to excel also at the tasks that will often come up time and time again with your clients.

• Editing and mixing an interview: many podcasts are interview-based, knowing how to edit them creatively will get you far.

• Handling damaged or poor recordings:  bad recordings happen more often than you’d expect, you need to know how to fix all sorts of sound problems that can come your way.

• Hitting strict deadlines: weekly, daily, monthly. You’ll be juggling a lot of clients and will need to stay on top of it all.
  

Other skills that audio engineers should have include:

• Problem-solving: technical issues happen way more than you’d expect.

• Collaboration: you’ll be working closely with podcasters, hosts, guests, and producers, good communication is key.

• Time Management: Production can take a lot of time, and shows have clear deadlines. You’ll need to know how to balance time and keep up high-quality work.

Where to Find a Job as a Podcast Audio Engineer

If you are looking for a job as an audio engineer, you may want to start keeping an eye on podcasting newsletters like those from Podnews and Sounds Profitable.

Keep in mind, as we mentioned Audio Engineer may mean different things to different people. Rather than only searching “Audio Engineer” jobs, you can search for other positions in sound design or editing. 

If you want to look even further here are a few sites to look at:

Podcast Job Posting Sites: Specific sites for all things podcasting jobs include Podnews Jobs or AIR. You can find freelance opportunities or full-time contract jobs in everything from management to production to promotion. 

Upwork & Fiverr: These are for freelancers and gig work, but often have a few opportunities in podcasting. It’s a great starter spot, but know that the rates and job stability through these opportunities might not be the best. On Fiverr you can upload your offer, and employers will contact you, on Upwork employers post projects and you can apply.

The Classic Job Posting Sites: LinkedIn, Indeed, Remote.co, or WeWorkRemotely, are all great spots to have a look for a podcasting job. You can find opportunities remotely or locally, just use the filters and search wisely.

Lastly, you can always look directly on your favorite podcast network, agency, or show’s website to see if they are looking for help. This is one of the best approaches as it ensures you’ll be working with a client you are enthusiastic about. Speaking of, you can always keep an eye out on the Lower Street Job page, we’d love to hear from you.