Chief Product Officer

The 19th; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

The 19th is seeking a Chief Product Officer to translate organizational strategy into a clear product and technology roadmap. You will lead a multidisciplinary team, shape journalism delivery, and collaborate with editorial and program teams to drive audience-focused products and internal tools.

As a senior leader reporting to the Chief Strategy Officer, you will own the product vision, balance priorities, and guide decisions across departments, ensuring security, AI governance, and sustainable

Qualifications

• 8+ years of product management and leadership in journalism or media.
• Experience setting roadmap, prioritization, and resourcing decisions.
• Ability to translate organizational strategy into product and tech plans.
• Knowledge of product security and risk management.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and partnerships with editorial.
• Experience deploying AI tools responsibly.
• Strong data interpretation and communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively in a remote environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead a roadmap and release decisions with the team.
• Collaborate with senior leadership on priorities and trade-offs.
• Guide product and technology decisions across departments.
• Oversee security, privacy, and risk across platforms.
• Foster a culture of experimentation, data-driven decision making.

Skills

Product leadership

Roadmap prioritization

Cross-functional collaboration

Product strategy

Security management

AI adoption

Data-driven decisions

Journalism experience

Job description

• Employment type: Full-time W-2 employment with full benefits
• Reports to: Chief Strategy Officer
• Direct Reports: Technical product manager, Product designer, Product operations manager, two Full-stack engineers
• Travel requirements: Travel 2-3 times per year for in-person team activities

The chief product officer (CPO) is responsible for translating The 19th's organizational strategy into a clear, prioritized product and technology vision and is accountable for the roadmap and team that bring that vision to life. The CPO will shape how our journalism is delivered to key audiences both on- and off-platform in a rapidly changing media landscape, serving as a strategic partner to the editor-in-chief in executing our audience strategy. They will proactively collaborate with stakeholders across all teams and programs to conceive, launch and iterate on products, working to better serve various audiences, including readers, publishing partners, fellows and donors.

Technological shifts are rapidly reshaping what’s possible. The CPO will decide what’s being built by focusing on what will have the greatest impact toward journalistic priorities, audiences’ needs and business goals. They will seek to deeply understand needs across departments and programs and clearly explain decisions on trade-offs to ensure all stakeholders trust they’re represented in the product and technology roadmap.

The CPO is a senior leader who will report to the chief strategy officer and lead a multidisciplinary team.

In a typical week, the CPO might:

• join recurring roadmap and release check-in meetings with their team to guide product and technology decisions, remove blockers and ensure work is being released regularly
• review the roadmap with senior leadership to ensure it reflects current priorities and known trade-offs
• design and lead a workshop with editorial and creative stakeholders to develop a product solution for delivering our journalism
• check in with the development team on the impact of recent improvements made to our customer relationship management (CRM) tools
• field a request from a program director then apply a product mindset to develop and decide on a solution, explaining any resource trade-offs between competing priorities

Day to day, the CPO will work in tools like Linear, Slack and Airtable. Core products include audience-facing products, such as 19thnews.org and newsletters, and internal tools, such as the CRM and content management system (CMS).

Responsibilities

• Build and lead execution of a user-centered vision and roadmap for how product and technology creatively drive internal and external strategic goals in direct support of The 19th's strategic plans while making deliberate, forward-looking investments
• Own transparent decisions on how product and technology resources are used to achieve organizational goals, determining the solution, investment level and roadmap priority by balancing strategic priorities, audience needs and team capacity
• Negotiate with c-suite and director-level peers to own decisions about how product and technology resources are deployed across the organization, determining what work to maintain, start and stop and clearly communicating priorities and tradeoffs to department leaders, program managers and staff, ensuring stakeholders feel represented in and have visibility on the product roadmap
• Develop and maintain lifecycle plans for core products, rapidly experimenting to create opportunities for discovery, engagement and retention in a way that’s sustainable for the team
• Serve as a trusted partner with senior leadership, security experts, product managers and engineers to identify, address and monitor security threats on owned platforms
• Lead strategic AI exploration and initiatives across the organization, partnering with the director of operations to uphold responsible and secure use of emerging technology
• Lead and structure a multidisciplinary team — including product management, product design, product operations and software engineers — to enable the organization to meet the demands of a rapidly changing media and technical landscape
• Guide team decisions about product design and technical considerations, grounding feedback in user needs, product vision and organizational strategy
• Partner with product managers and engineers to establish effective processes for triaging, prioritizing and resolving incidents, ensuring issues are addressed according to their impact and urgency
• Partner with product managers and engineers to maintain a clear, prioritized product roadmap and ensure planned work is appropriately scoped, sequenced and delivered against organizational priorities and within designated release cycles
• Lead the product fellowship track curriculum, delegating specific responsibilities to team members as needed
• Identify areas to leverage automation to accelerate routine functions, such as operations, QA, design system maintenance, research and documentation, to create capacity for innovation
• Own an annual budget that includes organizational software services and the potential for multiple vendors and contractors
• Lead collaboration with audience team members to understand audience needs and decide how we might meet them with product and technology work, setting success metrics, designing measurable experiments, using results to inform the roadmap and handing off ongoing content production for products
• Lead collaboration between the product team and all other departments to proactively discover and decide on product and technology solutions for internal and external users
• Bring an informed opinion about a build-versus-buy strategy and use of third-party platforms to make choices about our infrastructure and how we maintain it
• Build a growing product mindset culture within the product team and across The 19th, including audience centricity, data-driven decision-making, experimentation and iteration
• Serve as a product manager for select complex and high-priority work
• Stay current on journalism, product and technology trends and integrate relevant practices on an ongoing basis
• Early morning, evening and weekend shifts may be needed, in accordance with significant technical issues, errors or security risks for owned products

Leadership and management

• Lead and develop a high-performing team equitably, setting clear expectations, priorities and decision rights; providing regular feedback and coaching; supporting employee growth; and holding staff accountable for results
• Build a healthy and accountable team culture, addressing tension and conflict directly and constructively, practicing active listening, managing power responsibly, and supporting shared accountability and repair when needed
• Participate actively in senior leadership, contributing to joint decision-making, bringing an independent point of view about where product and technology can have the greatest impact, and helping determine the best ways to collaborate across teams
• Share accountability for organizational leadership, engaging candidly in discussion, supporting and communicating collective decisions, maintaining appropriate discretion, and stepping beyond your functional area when needed to advance organization-wide priorities

Responsibilities of all 19th staff

• Contribute to a collaborative and equitable workplace culture, including participating thoughtfully in shared decision-making, hiring, onboarding and other organization-wide efforts
• Take ownership of your performance and professional growth by seeking and applying feedback, participating in structured development opportunities, identifying areas for growth and building the skills needed to succeed in your role
• Engage constructively across teams and working relationships, communicating directly, navigating disagreement with curiosity and accountability, and contributing to shared learning and problem-solving
• Participate in organizational planning, relationship building and learning opportunities throughout the year, and contribute ideas that help The 19th improve how we work
• Take on other responsibilities as needed in support of team and organizational priorities

Relevant skills and experience

• 8+ years of product management and leadership experience, including in a journalism organization
• Experience leading product and/or technology strategy at an organizational level, ideally including a role with authority over roadmap, prioritization and resourcing decisions
• Knowledgeable about technology — able to make credible, informed decisions about architecture, tooling, technical risk and emerging technologies — and how it can be leveraged in the current journalism landscape
• Experience managing product security, including managing vulnerabilities, maintaining security best practices and triaging specific incidents
• Understanding of the importance of user experience and product design to achieving ambitious goals
• Experience implementing the adoption of an AI tool while exploring ethical, secure usage of emerging technologies
• Track record of building strategic, proactive partnerships with editorial and program teams and leading cross-functional projects
• Ability to approach ambiguous problems with curiosity, initiative and creativity
• Willingness to make calculated risks in how we deploy resources to achieve our goals in innovative ways
• Ability to interpret data, identify patterns and translate insights into actionable product and technological recommendations
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to manage several projects at the same time
• Ability to communicate complex ideas in a way that is accessible to those unfamiliar with a project or technology in a remote environment, with clear written and verbal communication skills