Product Manager - NewsBreak

4 days onsite in Mountain View, CA office is required.

About NewsBreak

NewsBreak is redefining the way users interact with local news and their communities. By bridging local users, local content creators, and local businesses, our mission is to foster safer, more vibrant, and authentically connected lives. Through robust collaborations with thousands of local publishers and businesses across the nation, NewsBreak is revolutionizing how a new wave of readers access and engage with essential, locally sourced content & information.

Since our inception in 2015, our trajectory has been nothing short of remarkable. We proudly stand as the nation's premier local news app, boasting 60 million monthly active users and clinching the top spot in the news category on both Google Play and the App Store.

As a profitable, Series-C unicorn startup, our headquarter nestles in the tech hub of Mountain View, California, with other offices in New York City and Seattle. For more information, visit www.newsbreak.com/about

Responsibilities:

We are seeking an experienced Product Manager (IC)with a track record of building world-class consumer-facing products with advanced AI technologies. 

• Proof of Concept: Partnering with the CEO and other leaders to refine and build out ideas, insights and innovations into validated first-mile proof of product concepts, including feasibility analysis, with an eye to achieving technical breakthroughs that deliver large-scale business impact. MVP design–driving to the key point/feature of each product hypothesis to explore more ideas and iterate quickly. 
• First Mile PRD: Translate innovative ideas into an execution plan (PRD) that sets a clear foundation to enable technical leaders to take ownership of product delivery. Responsible for strategy integration across the various product roadmaps.
• Product Excellence: Creating consistent cross-company product excellence; driving systematic execution with a balance between product excellence and risk-taking. Establish product review system, build "fit for purpose" process, and drive people to product excellence by providing standards and guidance.
• Company-level unifier: You identify clear overlaps or ways for users to take advantage of the entire product suite - driving up product utilization across user segment overlaps, moving users from one product to another.  
• External spokesperson: You are able to navigate speaking at events or to reporters with ease. Capable of industry (media) engagement as well as technical engagement – making our unique position in the market and cutting edge technology understandable across all audiences.  

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
• At least 8 years of experience in product management, co-founder, or a related technical role, with 5 years of experience building and shipping technical products
• Experience developing or launching consumer-facing or media products/technologies 
• Demonstrated zero-to-one product development success.
• Senior-level engineering capability; could build the first prototype if asked.
• Start-up experience; has navigated resource-constrained, fast-moving environments.  

Bonus point

• Experience working directly with C-levels

You will thrive in this environment if you're: 

• Confident: You have strong-pattern recognition; you're not afraid to question, debate, and push people to be better–no matter their level. You build respect without worrying about likeability.  
• Cognitive horsepower: You can keep up with the CEO thinking "big" in multiple technical and business directions and move quickly to action. 
• Data-driven: You are relentlessly data-driven and detail-oriented.
• User-centric: You are passionate about users; thinking and designing on behalf of average users
• Disciplined: You're strategic, but you have an eye for detail; you can scale down to the lowest-level and debate at the highest level.  
• Behind-the-scenes: you are enamored with technical quality and execution as an IC (seeing what happens) over individual recognition/career-climbing.  
• Systematic: You're able to operate tactically while always seeing the longer-term strategic picture; you see how the short-term builds the long-term.  

Benefits

We offer competitive benefits package:

• Health, dental, and vision care for you and your family (0 cost for individual) 
• Top-tier 401(K) plan with company matching
• Paid time off and paid holidays
• Paid parental leave
• FSA and commuter benefits programs
• Team activity budget