Lead PM at Descript - AI Product Career Growth

Descript; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 225,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous healthcare

401k matching

Catered lunches

Flexible vacation time

Job summary

Descript is seeking a Lead Product Manager to own the Narrative Editing team, shaping how users capture, edit, and perfect stories with script-first editing and AI regeneration features. You’ll drive end-to-end product design, collaborating with an in-house AI Research team to deploy cutting-edge capabilities that balance simplicity with power.

You will lead a small, collaborative team and own strategy, roadmap, and metrics to deliver measurable impact in a fast-growing startup environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of product management experience shipping creative/tools/workflow software.
• Customer discovery and feature definition experience.
• Ability to handle ambiguous problems and translate ideas into action.
• Strong product intuition with end-to-end workflow design.
• Experience partnering with AI Research or advanced AI features.

Responsibilities

• Own the editor roadmap by understanding customer goals and AI video landscape.
• Shape script-first editing and in-editor AI features to deliver simple yet powerful workflows.
• Collaborate with AI Research to launch features like video regeneration and speaker ID.
• Oversee recording, script generation, and translation flows within Descript.
• Ensure the product scales for larger teams and complex workflows.

Skills

Product management

Creative tools

End-to-end workflows

Customer discovery

Systems thinking

AI collaboration

Job description

Lead PM at Descript - AI Product Career Growth in Lima

Compensation vs. Market: At $225K–$290K base, this offer sits at or above the 75th–90th percentile for senior/lead PMs in the US tech market. Even factoring in San Francisco's cost of living, this range is competitive with FAANG lead PM roles, making it exceptional for a 150-person startup.

Career Development Signals: This role sits at the intersection of two high-demand domains — AI product management and creator tools. Skills developed here (LLM-powered feature design, end-to-end workflow ownership, AI research partnership) are among the most sought-after in the 2024–2025 PM market.

Company Stage & Growth Potential: Descript is post-product-market-fit but pre-scale (~150 employees), backed by OpenAI, a16z, and Redpoint. This is the "sweet spot" stage — reduced existential risk, but equity still meaningful and individual impact measurable. The backing signals credibility without the bureaucracy of a large enterprise.

Green Flags:

• Honest, self-aware culture signals (the "funny, creative, weird" language reflects psychological safety).
• Direct ownership of a core product area — not a feature team buried in a roadmap.
• Partnership with an in-house AI Research team is rare and accelerates technical PM skill-building.

Watch For: The "fog sculptor" framing is appealing but also signals significant ambiguity. Strong candidates should be comfortable with undefined success metrics and building conventions from scratch — not everyone thrives here.

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA or Remote, US

About the Role

Descript's script-based editing features are at the heart of why creators trust us for their highest-stakes content — product launches, client interviews, marketing campaigns, and content that represents them to their audiences.

As Lead Product Manager of the Narrative Editing team, you'll own how users capture, edit, and perfect their stories. You'll shape the script-first editing that makes video as simple as a document, the recording and writing tools that let users create without leaving Descript, and the AI regeneration features that make edits feel seamless and natural.

This is an opportunity to shape features that professional creators depend on while working with cutting-edge AI, a product users love, and a small, collaborative team where your impact is immediate and visible.

What You'll Do

• Develop a deep understanding of our customers, their creative goals, and the evolving AI video landscape — and use those insights to guide the editor roadmap.
• Bring Descript's taste for great video into interactions and defaults, so creators naturally produce polished, professional work.
• Continuously expand our editing capabilities with frontier AI technology by partnering with our AI Research team, launching features like video regeneration and automatic speaker identification.
• Own the recording, script generation, and translation flows that help users achieve their end-to-end video workflows directly in Descript.
• Ensure Descript scales reliably for larger teams and more complex workflows.

Who You Are

• You've built deceptively powerful tools: You have 5 or more years of product management experience shipping creative tools or workflow products that feel simple enough for everyone, but scale to handle sophisticated use cases. You are a systems-minded product thinker who excels at designing intuitive experiences for complex, end-to-end workflows.
• You start with the customer: Plenty of "AI products" start with the technology and they all suck. You care deeply about understanding customers, and have experience in doing customer discovery and defining features that solve real problems.
• You are a fog sculptor: There are aspects to our editor and its design that do not have real competitors yet. The product intuition and design conventions have not been decided. You are attracted to ambiguous problems, know how to ask smart questions, and translate ideas into action.
• You care about craft: Our product is not a hype machine that runs on empty promises and vaporware. We think our product will be successful because people love to use it. That means you sweat the details — but without the sweat, because you aren't stressed out.
• You are funny, creative, maybe kind of weird: This isn't a hard requirement, but Descript is kind of a quirky place and the people who love it tend to like that about working here. The sense of humor is important because even though we take our work seriously, it's still just video creation and editing. We aren't flying rockets into space, so let's all have a good time.

The base salary range for this role is $225,000 – $290,000. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, location, level, and may vary from the amount above.

About Descript

Descript is building a simple, intuitive, fully-powered editing tool for video and audio — an editing tool built for the age of AI. We are a team of 150 with the backing of some of the world's greatest investors ( OpenAI , Andreessen Horowitz , Redpoint Ventures , Spark Capital ).

Descript is the special company that's in possession of both product market fit and the raw materials (passionate user community, great product, large market) for growth, but is still early enough that each new employee has a measurable influence on the direction of the company.

• Benefits include a generous healthcare package, 401k matching program, catered lunches, and flexible vacation time.

Our headquarters are located in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. We're hiring for a mix of remote roles and hybrid roles. For those who are remote, we have a handful of opportunities throughout the year for in-person collaboration. For our hybrid roles, we're flexible, and you're an adult — we don't expect or mandate that you're in the office every day. We do believe there are valuable and serendipitous moments of discovery and collaboration that come from working together in person.

Descript is an equal opportunity workplace — we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We believe in actively building a team rich in diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to better allow our employees, products, and community to thrive.

Is this Lead PM role fully remote or does it require being in San Francisco? The role is listed as "Remote, US" with an option for San Francisco-based candidates. Remote employees are expected to participate in a handful of in-person collaboration events throughout the year, but are not required to be in the office regularly.

What is the salary range for the Lead Product Manager position at Descript? The base salary range is $225,000 to $290,000 annually. Final offers depend on factors including prior experience, expertise, and location.

How much experience is required for this role? Descript requires 5 or more years of product management experience, specifically shipping creative tools or workflow products that balance simplicity with sophisticated use cases.

What AI technologies will this PM work with at Descript? You'll partner with Descript's AI Research team to ship features like video regeneration, automatic speaker identification, script generation, and translation — all built on frontier AI models.

What benefits does Descript offer employees? Descript provides a generous healthcare package, 401(k) matching, catered lunches at HQ, and flexible vacation time.

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