Director of Product Management - Media & Publishing - Onsite - $150,000 to $200,000

Signal and Strand • Washington, DC

5h • $150,000 - $200,000 • Onsite

About The Position

We are partnered with a fast-growing, multi-brand local media company on the search for its Director of Product Management. The company is building the technology backbone that powers independent local media and community-building services across a growing portfolio of markets, including city publications, an events and ticketing platform, podcasts, and productions. As it expands into new revenue streams and cities, it needs a leader who can turn a patchwork of publishing, membership, and ticketing tools into a coherent, scalable technical product strategy.
This leader will own the vision, roadmap, and execution for the company's core technology stack, spanning the CMS and publishing platform, subscriber and member identity, CRM, advertising technology, and ticketing systems. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role: setting technical product strategy at the executive level while staying close enough to the details to write a clear spec, evaluate a vendor contract, or unblock an integration.
The role partners daily with content, advertising, membership, and events leaders across all brands, and with external vendors and platform partners, to make sure the technology serves both readers and the business as the company scales from a single-market operation into a multi-locale multimedia company. This leader makes build-vs-buy calls, owns vendor relationships, and is accountable for whether the company's technical bets pay off. The role has direct involvement at the C-suite level, working closely with executive leadership to set and defend technical product strategy as a company-wide priority.

Requirements

• 8+ years of technical product management experience, including full ownership of a product roadmap from strategy through delivery
• Demonstrated experience with content management systems, subscription/membership platforms, CRM, or advertising technology (e.g., WordPress/Newspack, Piano, HubSpot, Broadstreet, or comparable platforms)
• Experience managing technical vendor and platform relationships, including contract negotiation and build-vs-buy decision-making
• Strong written communication skills, with the ability to produce clear specs, business cases, and roadmap documents for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience partnering directly with engineering teams, whether in-house, agency, or vendor, to scope, prioritize, and ship technical products
• A track record of using data and metrics to drive product decisions and demonstrate outcomes
• Comfort operating with significant autonomy in a lean, fast-moving organization, including a willingness to be hands-on with details as well as strategy

Nice To Haves

• Experience in media, publishing, membership/loyalty programs, or ticketing and events technology
• Hands-on development experience building or scaling products across multiple markets, brands, or a multi-tenant architecture
• Familiarity with fraud prevention, payments, or redemption systems
• People management experience, or experience building the case for a team before it exists
• Experience operating as the sole/first technical product hire in an organization, standing up process and discipline from scratch

Responsibilities

• Define and own the multi-year technical product vision and roadmap across the company's publishing, membership, ticketing, and advertising technology stack, and translate that vision into a prioritized, resourced execution plan
• Lead the strategy, selection, and optimization of the core platform stack, including the CMS/publishing platform (Newspack), subscription and membership management (Piano), CRM and marketing automation (HubSpot), ad tech (Broadstreet), and app publishing (Pugpig), across current and future markets
• Own reader and member identity architecture across all brands, enabling a unified view of subscribers, members, and donors, and powering personalization, retention, and B2B CRM use cases
• Partner with arts, retail, and hospitality partners to scale the membership program, prioritizing fraud mitigation, real-time redemption tracking, and instant issuance of dozens of partner perks a month across the company's footprint of cities
• Evaluate, negotiate, and manage ticketing platform relationships (e.g., Bandwango, Ticketmaster, or comparable providers), with a strong bias toward the company retaining ownership of customer and transaction data
• Write clear, well-reasoned product specs, business cases, and roadmap documents that align technical and non-technical stakeholders, from engineering partners to the executive team, around priorities and trade-offs
• Own vendor and technical partner relationships end-to-end: contract negotiation, performance management, and build-vs-buy decisions balanced against budget, timeline, and long-term platform strategy
• Partner cross-functionally with editorial, advertising, membership, and events leaders across all brands and the ticketing business to surface and prioritize product opportunities
• Establish metrics frameworks and reporting that connect technical product decisions to business outcomes (reader growth, retention, membership redemption, ad yield) and use that data to drive prioritization
• Build the mechanisms (documentation, roadmap reviews, intake processes) that let a small, fast-moving team make good technical product decisions without constant re-litigation
• Provide immediate technical product support and direction to the existing engineering team, including prioritization, specs, and roadmap planning, from day one
• Build the business case for growing a technical product function over time, identifying where additional product, program, or analyst roles are needed, and hire, mentor, and manage that team as it is approved

Benefits

• Signal and Strand is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We—and our clients—do not discriminate in employment or contracting on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, registered domestic partner status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws.
• We comply fully with the provisions of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
• All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit, and business needs.
• We are committed to providing a workplace that is inclusive, respectful, and free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed