Director of Product - Growth

About Us

The Athletic is a digital sports media company that brings true sports fans closer to the athletes, teams and leagues that captivate their attention. We serve a multi-faceted audience that craves a richer connection and understanding with immersive storytelling and a like-minded community of fans. Founded in 2016 and with major operational hubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, London and Melbourne, we empower a truly global team of more than 600 creators and cover more than 250 professional sports and collegiate teams across the United States, Canada and the UK. Our newsroom has produced thousands of in-depth reports along with more than 120 podcasts and other forms of premium content. Put simply, The Athletic is at the center of a sports fan’s universe.

About the Role

Product plays a pivotal role at The Athletic, spearheading critical cross-functional initiatives and leading teams of engineers, designers, marketers, and analysts to execute seamlessly on behalf of the business and our users. As a Director of Product, you will be a key strategic and operational leader, partnering closely with company executives and leading a team of Product Managers. This is an advanced role, and you will be critical to the success of the Product organization and company at large. You will report to the VP of Product.

The primary focus is on driving subscription growth. Key areas of subscription growth include driving new audience to The Athletic, bringing them back on platform for continued engagement or re-activation, converting them to subscribers, and preventing subscription churn. There may be other areas of ownership within our Subscription or Commercial strategies. Your work will span off-platform (e.g., email), on-platform messaging and conversion touchpoints, and on-platform engagement features. The job is to improve the overall user experience, with the goal of helping users move down the subscription funnel, with influence across the product experience

This role is remote to the US and Canada only. 

Responsibilities

• Own the strategy and roadmap for 1 or more product areas

• Define the strategy and vision for your product area(s) to meet business objectives.

• Leverage existing expertise in your domain area(s) (e.g., Subscriber Engagement and Retention) and a clear understanding of user needs and the competitive landscape.

• Partner closely on strategy and execution with tech executives across product, design, engineering, data, marketing, and the newsroom.

• Own a multi-team roadmap that balances long term and short term considerations.

• Drive impact

• Lead large cross-functional working group(s) on key strategic initiatives.

• Work closely with the rest of the Product team to align initiatives and dependencies.

• Report on impact and learnings to key executive stakeholders.

• Lead a team of Product Managers

• Develop the careers of your direct report Product Managers.

• Foster a highly collaborative and productive environment.

• Inform the work of other teams through direct and indirect mechanisms, including mentoring other PM colleagues as appropriate.

• Improve organizational operations

• Work closely with other tech leaders on operational improvements.

• Invest smartly in platforms and processes to ship and experiment at scale.

Requirements

• 4+ years of highly relevant product leadership experience including a team or functional leadership role.

• Clear strategic strengths, from goal setting to strategy development to communication and reporting.

• Expertise in consumer digital products.

• Executional capabilities including cross-functional initiative leadership - you need to get things done in addition to guide the work.

• Demonstrated experience being a people manager your team learns from and is excited to work with.

• High familiarity with and love for sports and journalism.

• Excellence with data - analyzing data, deriving insights, and making data-driven decisions.

• Experience developing great user experiences, and an ability to empathize with users.

• Eagerness to try new things and learn - and a willingness to fail.

The annual base salary range for this role is $170,000.00 - $190,000.00 USD. The total compensation offered for this position may vary based on factors such as education, experience, skills, and location. It may also include non-cash rewards and benefits. The base salary range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

The Athletic offers unique perks and benefits to all full-time employees based on their country of residence. Our comprehensive US benefits package includes:

- Highly competitive, employer-contributed medical, dental, vision, basic life and disability insurance plans.

- Savings accounts for medical, wellness, and childcare expenses.

- 401k retirement savings plan and employer match.

- Paid time off including paid sick leave, 12 paid holidays, 15 days of accrued vacation to start, and up to 20 weeks of Paid Parental Leave.

For international candidates: Our global benefits packages offer similar benefits and perks, competitive to the local market.

The Athletic Media Company is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. The Athletic will consider all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

Click here to review our Applicant Privacy Notice, which describes how and when The Athletic Media Company collects, uses, and shares certain personal information of job applicants and prospective employees.

Beware of fraudulent job recruiting schemes! Our recruiters use [email protected] exclusively. We do not conduct interviews via text or instant message and we do not ask candidates to download software, to purchase equipment through us, or to provide sensitive personally identifiable information, such as bank accounts or social security numbers. If you have been contacted by someone claiming to be a recruiter with The Athletic but operating from a different email address about a job offer, please report it as potential job fraud to the law enforcement and to [email protected].