Associate Product Manager

CodeHS; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

CodeHS, based in Chicago, is seeking an early-career product manager to own projects from problem understanding through launch. You will work closely with engineers to define scope and tradeoffs, and you will participate in cross-team prioritization to understand how decisions are made.

You’ll build quick prototypes with AI agents to test ideas and learn from teachers, districts, and data. The role emphasizes ownership, practical learning, and clear communication in a fast-moving education

Qualifications

• At least 1 year of full-time work experience; product management internship counts.
• Comfortable around code; can read PRs and ask engineers questions.
• Fluent with AI and adaptive to changing tech; prototype with coding agents.
• High agency: be handed problems, not tasks; come back with a plan.
• Clear communicator in a bottom-line-up-front environment.

Responsibilities

• Own projects within a product area from problem understanding to launch and adoption.
• Make scope, specs, and tradeoffs calls with engineers.
• Sit in on prioritization conversations across teams and learn decision processes.
• Build working prototypes with AI coding agents to test ideas.
• Translate insights from teachers, districts, and data into actionable product work.

Job description

CodeHS is a comprehensive platform helping K-12 schools teach computer science. We provide curriculum, professional development, and a full software platform. CodeHS is used by millions of students and thousands of schools and districts around the US and the world.

Mission

The mission of CodeHS is to empower all students to meaningfully impact the future. We believe that in the 21st century, coding is a foundational skill, just like reading and writing. That’s why we say: Read, Write, Code. Coding and computer science are essential skills for students to learn and schools to teach.

Location

Chicago — our River North office, five days a week. Reports to Zach Galant, CTO & co-founder.

CodeHS is hybrid overall. We have people in other offices and people who work remotely, and you’ll work with them regularly. This role is in person because it depends on coming up to speed quickly — on the product, on our customers, and on how the engineering team works — and that happens faster sitting next to people. So does mentorship. We want someone who wants to work that way and is excited about getting to work in person in the office.

We are growing our product team within engineering

We have about fifteen engineers in small project teams that re-form each cycle, and we ship constantly. What limits our impact usually isn’t engineering capacity — it’s conviction about what to build, why, and how to communicate it to the rest of the team and our customers. We want someone who can get that conviction from teachers, districts, the market, our data, and our own team, and turn it into something engineering can act on.

The role

This role is for someone earlier in their career who wants to learn product management by doing it.

You’ll own projects within a product area, from understanding the problem through launch and adoption. You’ll make the calls on scope, specs, and tradeoffs for your projects and work closely with the engineers building them. The bigger calls — which problems to take on, and what not to build — we’ll make together at first, and more of them become yours as you show judgment.

You’ll sit in on the conversations where we set priorities across teams, so you can see how those decisions get made.

How you work

You build. When you have an idea, go make a version of it. Not production code — a working prototype you drove an AI coding agent to build. Engineers review and take it to completion.

You write things down. Specs, product briefs, the reasoning behind a decision. If it isn’t written down here, it doesn’t count.

You talk to the people who use this. Much of the work is strategy and synthesis. But when the answer is in a classroom or on a call with a district, you go. It isn’t a heavy travel role, but you will need to join calls, talk to people on the team and customers, and build an understanding beyond just reasoning through things on your own.

You connect engineering to everyone else. Sales, customer success, support, and curriculum all have product or tooling needs. Your job is to gather the information, synthesize it, and use that to inform what the right things are to build.

You should be

Early in your career, with real work behind you. At least a year of full-time work experience, in any role. A product management internship counts too. You don’t need to have been a PM.

Comfortable around code, without necessarily having been an engineer. You can read a pull request and ask an engineer good questions about how something works and what it would take to change.

Fluent with AI, and adaptive to how things are changing. You use AI to guide your thinking and move quickly, but you don’t hide behind it for judgment. You should be prototyping with coding agents, running research and synthesis through them, and building yourself tools. You should also be able to describe a time the model was confidently wrong and you caught it. You use AI to be more ambitious and raise the bar for quality.

High agency. You’ll be handed problems, not tasks. Come back with a plan, and say so if you think it’s the wrong problem.

A clear communicator. We’re a bottom-line-up-front company. Say the thing first. Make it easy for others to reply to you.

Compensation and benefits

Salary range: $90,000 - $110,000 base, depending on level and experience.