Staff Product Manager, Academia

• 8+ years of product management experience, with a strong track record in B2C or consumerized SaaS
• Demonstrated experience improving user engagement metrics (e.g., time spent, retention, DAU/WAU)
• Familiarity with feed-based products, recommendation engines, or social/community systems
• Ability to think in systems and balance technical depth with user empathy
• Excellent product judgment, prioritization skills, and communication
• Thrives in ambiguity and drives structure and clarity across complex spaces

Desirable

• We are hiring a Staff Product Manager to join the Engagement Pillar, which is responsible for maximizing time spent per user by delivering world-class experiences across content, community, and activation
• The Engagement Pillar owns the core loop of discovery on Academia.edu, ensuring researchers come back repeatedly because they find value in the content they see, the people they engage with, and the habits we help them build
• As a Staff PM in this group, you will work in one of two product teams in the group: (1) Content Experience or (2) Community Experience
• You’ll shape the strategy and roadmap for how we help researchers stay connected to their fields and communities through passive and active discovery of research and people
• This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for a senior product leader who excels at cross-functional coordination, thrives in ambiguous environments, and can drive initiatives from concept to scale
• Define and evolve the vision for increasing engagement across our homepage, email, and ranking systems
• Collaborate with leadership across the organization to ensure cohesive user journeys and prioritization alignment
• Drive product development for initiatives that improve time-on-site, session frequency, and homepage stickiness
• Identify key levers across feed ranking, social signals, and lifecycle marketing (email/notifications) to boost repeat visits
• Synthesize insights from data, user research, and competitive analysis into product bets
• Work closely with engineering, data science, design, and marketing to deliver measurable outcomes
• Help define the operating model for the Engagement Pillar, including metrics, rituals, and inter-team collaboration