Staff Product Manager, Instructure
$160-180k
Plus all full-time employees participate in our ownership program
Dynamic learning management platform
Job no longer available
Dynamic learning management platform
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$160-180k
Plus all full-time employees participate in our ownership program
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help learners thrive in tomorrow's landscape by delivering a future-ready ecosystem.
Role
Who you are
- A Pedagogical Realist: You have a solid understanding of pedagogical theory (e.g., Bloom’s Taxonomy, Scaffolding, ZPD) or the ability to pick it up rapidly. You understand that an AI agent isn't just a chatbot—it's a tool for metacognition and student success
- Technically Fluent in AI Architecture: You go deeper than buzzwords. You understand the high-level architecture of agentic systems (e.g., orchestration layers, vector databases, embeddings, model inference). You can hold your own in technical debates with engineering leads, deeply understanding the latency, cost, and complexity implications of your product requirements
- A Cross-Functional Diplomat: You have a track record of driving alignment across multiple product lines with competing priorities. You can say "no" to stakeholders while making them feel heard and valued
- Low Ego, High Action: You are comfortable in an incubation setting where roles are fluid and the only metric that matters is learning speed and user value
- Principled & Ethical: You care deeply about data privacy, bias, and the ethical implications of putting AI in front of learners
- 8+ years of Product Management experience, with at least 3 years in a Staff/Principal or Lead role
- Demonstrated experience shipping AI/ML products, specifically those involving LLMs or conversational agents
- Strong technical literacy: Ability to understand complex system architectures and discuss trade-offs (e.g., context window limits, retrieval strategies, model fine-tuning vs. prompting). You don't need to write code, but you must be able to read research papers and API documentation to assess feasibility and inform decisions
- Experience in EdTech or a strong passion for the domain is highly preferred
- Proven ability to work in a matrixed organization, influencing teams without direct authority
What the job involves
- We are looking for a Staff Product Manager to sit at the unique intersection of Incubation (rapid experimentation and building new initiatives from the ground up) and Scale (powering the learning experiences for millions of students globally)
- You will join our Incubation team to lead the integration of Athena, our AI learning companion, into our core ecosystems: Canvas Academic and Canvas Career
- While many AI product roles remain stuck in the lab or focused on optimizing ad clicks, this position offers something different: high-velocity innovation with massive social consequence
- You will work at the cutting edge of what is technically possible, applying advanced AI agents to the deeply human challenge of learning
- This is your chance to shape the future of education, moving beyond the hype to deliver tools that genuinely help people grow
- We need a builder who thrives in ambiguity, a diplomat who can align diverse product teams, and a pragmatic visionary
- You leverage the extraordinary capabilities of frontier and proprietary models to drive undeniable utility, understanding that the "magic" of AI is only valuable if it solves the concrete, daily problems of our users better than any previous technology could
- Evolve & Execute the "Learner Agent" Strategy: Working in concert with executive leadership, you will take our initial strategic vision and evolve it into a concrete, executable roadmap
- You will act as the primary owner of the tactical definition, normalizing requirements across Higher Ed, K12, Career, and the standalone Athena contexts to ensure our agent strategy scales effectively
- Unify the Agent Architecture & B2C Innovation: Athena serves a dual purpose: it is a standalone student app (B2C) and the intelligence engine for Canvas
- You will drive product discovery for the standalone app while collaborating with Academic and Career teams to ensure the shared "Athena Brain" backend meets the needs of all three contexts. You will educate internal stakeholders on AI constraints to build a cohesive, prioritized backlog
- Orchestrate Cross-Team Alignment: You will act as the connective tissue between the Incubation, Career, and Academic teams
- Your role is to build understanding of AI capabilities across the organization and drive consensus on priorities, ensuring that the rapid experimentation of Incubation aligns with the stability requirements of core Canvas products
- Drive Research & Thought Leadership: You will collaborate with internal and external research partners to measure the pedagogical efficacy of our AI tools
- You will champion these findings globally, representing Instructure at industry conferences and contributing to the broader conversation on the role of AI in education
- Discovery & Stakeholder Engagement: You will work directly with students, institutional admins, and faculty to validate hypotheses. You will move beyond "AI hype" to discover high-value, high-efficacy use cases
- Champion "Realist" AI: You will be the voice of reason. You will promise what is possible, not just what is popular. You will help the organization distinguish between the theoretical limits of LLMs and the practical realities of a classroom or corporate training environment
Our take
Instructure is an education technology company, creator of the Canvas Learning Management Platform that allows schools to build digital learning environments that meet the needs of their institutions. The platform simplifies teaching, elevates learning, and eliminates the headaches of supporting and growing traditional learning technologies.
The Canvas platform has grown to become a key part of a large number of educational institutions, from pre-school to higher education. Meanwhile, the company has gone international and hit the $1 billion market cap, made a number of acquisitions and invested in R&D. In fact, much of Instructure's workforce is dedicated to R&D, which shows their focus on innovating.
Instructure was itself acquired in 2024 by KKR, which supports a broad-based equity ownership program for Instructure employees. With KKR's record of acquired companies, this is a promising development. And, as the company centres a future-oriented vision and brand strategy, it will be interesting to see what it does next.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
3% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Jun 2016
$4m
SERIES A
Aug 2015
$1.5m
CONVERTIBLE
Total funding: $5.5m
Company benefits
- Join a passionate community of educators and the people working to support them
- Access to a large course library, mentoring and coaching opportunities, and regular feedback
- Community engagement (partnerships, volunteering, free learning resources, and ongoing outreach efforts)
- Office culture that values outcomes and impact above all
- Equity and ownership programs give every employee a stake in our future
- Ownership, recognition, and celebrations of shared success
- Growth opportunities (we’re all about helping our people move into (and thrive in) new roles)
Company HQ
Cottonwood Heights, UT
Leadership
Steve Daly
(CEO)They have a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a MBA in Strategy and Finance with more than 20 years experience in hardware and software industries.
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