Staff / Principal Product Manager, Cinematica

Inkitt•San Francisco, CA

24d•$200,000 - $235,000•Onsite

About The Position

Inkitt is building the Disney of the 21st Century, leveraging AI and predictive algorithms to discover unknown stories and turn them into blockbuster hits. They produce a new $1M ebook every 7 days and sell directly to consumers through their Inkitt Galatea app. Bestsellers are then translated onto the screen through Inkitt CandyJar, the #1 US-based microdrama platform with billions of episodes streamed to date. Inkitt has become the 11th most bestseller-generating publisher in the world. Their recent expansion into Ironblood, the first AI Native streaming platform for action and adventure, is part of their journey to becoming the next-gen entertainment powerhouse. Cinematica is their AI-native video studio that turns stories into high-quality, cinematic videos, integrating the creative and technical production workflow into one platform. Cinematica is a step towards their larger vision: becoming the operating system that enables storytellers to bring any story to life, in any format. Inkitt operates with a unique work philosophy where the founder and CEO sets company priorities, and the employee owns the ideas. Employees spend time researching competitors, the industry, and users to generate new feature ideas, maintaining a live Top 3 list of the highest-impact ideas for their area. Ideas are pitched on a single slide with an impact calculation, and anything requiring over a week of engineering needs a business case demonstrating ROI. Approved ideas are owned end-to-end, including release and A/B ramping. Features are reviewed four weeks after launch against predicted impact, and performance is measured by how often employees beat their own Top 3 and the realized impact of shipped features. This is not a role where a roadmap is handed to the employee; it requires proactive idea generation and ownership.

Requirements

6+ years of professional experience at a fast growing tech company, building creative prosumer/enterprise tools or AI-powered products. We measure years on the job, not years holding a “product manager” title.
A roadmap you owned outright: you set the sequence, you decided what didn't get built, and you can explain what that cost and why it was right
Demonstrable taste. You can watch two pieces of generated video, articulate precisely why one is better, and turn that judgement into a rubric someone else can apply without you
Proven track record owning the quality of creative output at scale, and building the systems that measured it — benchmarks, human eval, blind comparisons, A/B — plus a point of view on where automated metrics stop being useful. Generative AI, film and TV post-production, games, animation or creative tooling all count
You have made things yourself, not only managed people who make things. Be ready to walk us through something you personally produced — a shipped feature, a film, a reel, a side project
Exceptional analytical skills where you can quantify both qualitative/quantitative data to make product and strategic decision - i.e. Advanced SQL skills
Self starter that can deliver results with limited supervision and thrives in a fast-paced environment
Strong product intuition and UX design sensibilities, with a user centric mindset
Willing to roll up your sleeves to go above and beyond to make things successful
Ability to work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to determine first-class solutions

Responsibilities

Own the Cinematica roadmap end to end — adaptation, shot generation, character and style consistency, music, editing and quality evaluation — and decide what gets built first, what gets cut, and what waits
Turn a production process that today depends on individual judgement into a platform other people can run: our own studio first, then storytellers beyond Inkitt
Define what "good" looks like for an Inkitt story on screen, write it down, and hold the line on it
Build the evaluation system behind that bar: rubrics, benchmarks, blind comparisons and human review loops, so quality becomes something the team can measure and argue about with evidence rather than taste alone
Own the model and prompt strategy, and the buy-versus-build calls underneath it, with engineering, design, analytics and user research
Drive improvements through their entire product lifecycle: ideation, specification, development, release, analysis and iterations
Run a tight iteration loop: ship, watch what viewers actually do, diagnose precisely what failed, feed it back into the pipeline, measure the delta
Work shoulder to shoulder with our Creative Director and AI-Video Production team — your first users — turning craft judgement into systems that hold up without any one person in the room
Educate and influence cross functional stakeholders and leadership to secure buy-in on the roadmap, and communicate your hypotheses and results to team members and leadership
Make quality legible: report it as a number that moves, and connect it to what it does for retention and conversion

Benefits

401k plan, designed to help you save for the future
Health benefits tailored to your needs, including medical, dental, and vision coverage
Professional coaching for everyone
Team-building events, including our annual Tulum trip
Unlimited access to our Galatea app and CandyJar app.
Unlimited budget for self-development books
Charity donation of your choice at your one year anniversary
Free lunch in office everyday
Class Pass membership for US based employee and gym access for Berlin employees
Dog-friendly offices in Berlin and San Francisco