Chief Product Officer - Scale an AI-Driven Student Benefits Platform

student-basic-needs-coalition; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 144,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Paid time off

Paid parental leave

Federal holidays

401(k) retirement plan

Home office stipend

Job summary

The Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC) is hiring its first Chief Product Officer to lead the next stage of our product function, turning a high-traction product into a scalable platform across campuses. You will own product strategy, discovery, and execution, guiding AI-enabled features while staying close to students, campus partners, and the ED.

We value evidence-based decision-making, hands-on leadership, and the ability to balance long-term strategy with practical product delivery in a

Qualifications

• Functional or executive-level leadership experience (7+ years in management).
• Experience taking products from 0 to 1, ideally in startups or entrepreneurial settings.
• Proven track record using evidence to drive product decisions and roadmaps.
• Direct experience shipping AI-enabled product features.
• Experience in higher education, government benefits, or similarly regulated environments.
• Strong product judgment under resource constraints and ability to prioritize learning over feature volume.

Responsibilities

• Set SBNC's product vision and translate goals into a prioritized roadmap.
• Lead and grow a lean technology team while staying close to the work.
• Define AI strategy and evaluate AI-enabled features for safety and efficacy.
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative user research with students and campus partners.
• Identify barriers, hypotheses, and prioritize interventions with rapid experiments.
• Own roadmap execution and balance speed, quality, and learning.

Skills

Executive leadership

Product strategy

User research

AI evaluation

Roadmap execution

Stakeholder management

Write specs

Tools

Navvy AI platform

Job description

The Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC) is hiring its first Chief Product Officer to lead the next stage of our product function, turning a high-traction product into a scalable platform across campuses. You will own product strategy, discovery, and execution, guiding AI-enabled features while staying close to students, campus partners, and the ED.

We value evidence-based decision-making, hands-on leadership, and the ability to balance long-term strategy with practical product delivery in a