Lead Product Manager, Messaging

ZipRecruiter•Santa Monica, CA

8h•$215,000 - $255,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Messaging is how ZipRecruiter shows up for job seekers when they are not on the site. Every day we send millions of emails and push notifications: new job alerts, fresh matches, communications from employers, and updates on applications already in flight. This portfolio is one of the largest single sources of job applications on ZipRecruiter, and it is the primary channel for re-engaging job seekers who would otherwise drift away. You will own Product for this entire channel. That means deciding which messages exist and what each one is for, who receives them and when, how the portfolio balances message volume against job seeker trust and long-term retention, and how we decide for each job seeker the single best thing to send next. The role sits at the center of the marketplace. Your messages carry the output of our matching and ranking models, so you will work daily with data science and machine learning teams. Your sends drive employer outcomes, so you will coordinate with employer-side Product teams on how to drive the most effective outcomes for them. And you own a channel with real constraints: deliverability, sender reputation, compliance, and a finite budget of seeker attention.

Requirements

Proven Leadership: 7+ years of proven success in product management, with a record of delivering results.
Deeply Analytical: You are a data-obsessed problem solver who doesn't just look at dashboards but interrogates the "why" behind the numbers. You are comfortable in SQL and fluent in A/B experimentation.
Lifecycle or Notifications Experience: You have owned email, push, or lifecycle messaging products at consumer scale, and you understand the tension between engagement volume and user trust.
AI/ML Fluency: You understand how to leverage machine learning to solve user problems, and you have shipped product features powered by ranking, relevance, or recommendation models.
Customer Obsession: You have a passion for speaking directly with your users and personally conducting user research.
Strong Communication: You write and speak clearly, and collaborate well across engineering, data science, design, and go-to-market stakeholders.
Self-Motivation: You are highly driven and thrive when given the autonomy to drive massive impact.

Nice To Haves

Marketplace Experience: Previous experience at a two-sided marketplace (e.g., jobs, real estate, rideshare), where your work on one side had to account for outcomes on the other.
Send-Decisioning or Growth Systems: Experience building message selection, frequency capping, or channel orchestration systems, or growth/CRM automation at scale.
Deliverability Literacy: Working knowledge of email deliverability, sender reputation, and compliance regimes including SMS/RCS.

Responsibilities

Act as an Owner: Take full accountability for the jobseeker messaging domain, from portfolio-level KPI setting to the details of individual message performance.
Optimize the portfolio: We send dozens of distinct message types. You will lead the thinking behind which, when, and how many messages we send, and via which channels.
Obsess over your metrics: Applications delivered, job seeker activation and retention, unsubscribes and complaint rates, and the revenue carried by email placements. You will know how every message class contributes to each, and you will interrogate the why behind the numbers.
Run on experiments: You will design experiments, read, and resolve them with judgment about long-term business health, looking beyond short-term engagement.
Partner deep in the stack: Work with the engineering teams that own the messaging platform, with recommendations and matching teams on ranking and match quality inside your sends, and with the marketplace teams to understand how your product can move the needle on supply and demand.
Protect the channel: Deliverability, sender reputation, compliance, and opt-in/opt-out systems are critical areas of Product focus.
Voice of the Job Seeker: Serve as the voice of the job seeker for off-platform touchpoints. Talk to job seekers, run research, and develop the storyline behind how our messaging strategies impact the users and the business.