Product Manager - Growth

About the role

This role is the product lead for organic user acquisition and conversion across all discovery channels. You will architect the end-to-end new-user journey from first impression through sign-up, onboarding, and sustained engagement. Success in this position requires balancing analytical rigor with an intuitive grasp of market dynamics to turn behavioral data into actionable experiments. You must communicate fluently across product, engineering, and discovery teams to translate strategic vision into measurable outcomes. The position demands ownership of the entire funnel, ensuring that discoverability aligns with user intent at every touchpoint. You will iterate on the first-run experience to convert installs into ongoing participation and meaningful weekly activity. A core part of the role is defining and instrumenting funnel events to distinguish real progress from misleading vanity metrics.

Key facts

What you'll do

You will take end-to-end ownership of the organic acquisition funnel, ensuring discoverability across every touchpoint where audiences seek compelling writing. This includes designing and iterating on the first-run experience, from the initial app impression through sign-up and orientation, with the explicit goal of converting installs into ongoing engagement. You will architect the post-onboarding journey, ensuring that early interactions compound into meaningful weekly activity. Your responsibilities will center on experimentation and optimization within the growth loop. You will design, run, and analyze experiments aimed at improving sign-up conversion, first-action completion, and Day 1 and Day 7 retention. You will evaluate traffic sources, tailoring experiences for users arriving via organic search, App Store browse, creator links, and paid campaigns. You will define and instrument the funnel events that allow the team to distinguish meaningful progress from misleading numbers. You will own App Store Optimization for all Substack surfaces, including app listing pages and bespoke vertical landing pages. You will design and execute experiments testing copy, screenshots, preview video, and ratings strategies to improve install conversion. You will monitor competitor positioning and maintain comprehensive keyword coverage for creator-relevant search terms in both the App Store and Google Play. A core pillar of the position is Search Engine Optimization within the creator ecosystem. You will own Substack's SEO strategy, protecting its strong existing position while extending its authority. You will partner with product and engineering teams to ensure that any product-level changes-including new pages, URL structures, navigation, rendering, and indexability-are evaluated for SEO and AEO impact before launch. You will conduct ongoing content and technical audits to align with evolving search algorithms and user expectations. You will analyze qualitative and quantitative signals to refine the content model and improve organic performance over time. You will synthesize insights from search behavior, clickstream data, and creator feedback into clear product requirements. You will translate ambiguous growth problems into structured hypotheses and testable experiments. You will collaborate with design and research to prototype concepts and validate solutions before full implementation. You will work closely with editorial and community teams to align product initiatives with cultural trends in publishing. You will maintain fluency in AI-powered search trends and assess how they reshape organic discovery for writers and readers. You will present a coherent strategic response to shifts in discovery and recommendation ecosystems.

Requirements

You must have 5 to 8 years of product management experience, specifically shaping growth initiatives within a technical environment. You must have a track record of writing specs, working effectively in sprints, and navigating roadmaps to prioritize impactful work. High agency is essential for influencing engineering and product partners. You must make convincing cases for why specific growth initiatives deserve priority based on evidence and clarity. Crisp written communication is a prerequisite for the role, given the cross-functional nature of the work. Strong analytical skills are non-negotiable for this position. You should be capable of building your own analyses, defining the right success metrics for experiments, and clearly distinguishing signal from noise in test results. Technical SEO fluency is equally important; you should understand how rendering, crawlability, structured data, Core Web Vitals, and site architecture impact rankings. You must be able to discuss these topics substantively with engineering colleagues and integrate technical constraints into product decisions. Hands-on App Store Optimization experience is required, covering keyword research, listing copy optimization, creative testing, and conversion analysis across major app stores. You must also be able to articulate how AI-powered search reshapes organic discovery or present a coherent strategic response to these changes. Authentic engagement with media, publishing, and the creator economy is a fundamental requirement, not merely a preference. This interest should inform decision-making and reveal opportunities aligned with the platform's cultural role. You should demonstrate a history of owning complex systems with multiple interdependent moving parts. You must be comfortable making decisions in ambiguous environments while maintaining rigorous product standards. You should have experience balancing short-term growth experiments with long-term platform health and trust. Comfort with data infrastructure, event schemas, and experimentation platforms is expected as part of the daily workflow. You should be proactive in identifying edge cases and unintended consequences of product changes.

Nice to have

Preferred experience includes working with subscription-based digital platforms and monetized creator ecosystems. Familiarity with content recommendation systems and personalization strategies would be advantageous in this context. Experience contributing to open source or developer platforms is viewed favorably given Substack's technical orientation. Background in journalism, media technology, or community-building roles is considered a positive signal for understanding the audience. Experience with international markets and localization considerations would support global expansion efforts.

Practical notes

This is a hybrid role where remote work is possible but in-person collaboration is valued. Standard hours apply, with the understanding that occasional evenings or weekends may be necessary to align with launch timing. Roles based in the United States require authorization to work in the country.