Product Manager (Evergreen)

Blue State; Oakland (CA); Hybrid; USD 91,000 - 93,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Unlimited time off

PD funds $1k annually

Health insurance

Flexible HSAs

401K & employer match

Paid holidays

Parental leave

Disability insurance

Pre-tax commuter benefits

Remote work flexibility

Job summary

Blue State in Oakland is seeking a Product Manager to partner with nonprofits and progressive brands to shape digital platforms, websites, and marketing tools. You’ll collaborate with Tech, Strategy, Design, and Analytics to translate user research into clear requirements and sprint plans.

The role requires strong cross-functional communication, ability to write acceptance criteria, and a pragmatic approach to scope and budget.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of product management experience, especially with website projects.
• Experience vetting designs for feasibility on CMS-driven sites.
• Familiarity with marketing platforms, CRMs, and personalization tech.
• Knowledge of HTML/CSS/JS; able to discuss capabilities with engineers.
• Experience using qualitative and quantitative data to inform decisions.
• Willingness to wear multiple hats across UX, content strategy, and user research.
• Ability to communicate recommendations via wireframes to design teams.
• Excellent communication; able to work with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong collaborator and relationship-builder with empathy and positivity.

Responsibilities

• Assess clients’ digital platforms and communicate solutions to meet strategic goals.
• Understand user needs through interviews and analytics, create personas and journeys.
• Lead product research, ideation, and prioritization sessions for features.
• Write and maintain functional requirements with clear acceptance criteria.
• Develop testing and measurement plans with strategists and analysts.
• Contribute to sprint plans and release schedules with the team.
• Manage stakeholder feedback and keep scope within budget constraints.
• Support scoping of new client engagements and align team effort with proposals.
• Contribute to documentation and toolkits within the product management practice.

Skills

Product management

CMS familiarity

User research

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

HTML/CSS/JS understanding

Data-driven decisions

UX design understanding

Wireframing to design teams

Stakeholder management

Tools

WordPress

Job description

If you came across this job via LinkedIn, please note that it is an evergreen role; LinkedIn does not differentiate, but we prefer to.

What to know

As a Product Manager at Blue State, you’ll work with leading nonprofits and progressive organizations to reimagine how they engage audiences through their digital product suite, which can include websites and digital marketing platforms. Working closely with our Tech, Strategy, Design, and Analytics teams, you’ll conduct user research, identify product requirements, help define content strategy, create sprint plans, write acceptance criteria, and test and iterate on deliverables for Blue State’s unique portfolio of clients. Our Product Managers are generalists who create connections between strategists, designers, engineers, analysts, content producers, and client stakeholders.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From AARP and Doctors Without Borders to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is an independent agency in the US and London.

The team

The Tech Team consists of product managers, developers, tech leads, and martech specialists. We’re veterans of presidential campaigns, agencies, nonprofits, and the tech world who want our work to matter, are passionate about technology, and aim to continually improve the work we do. We collaborate very closely remotely and, optionally, from our offices in New York, DC, and London.

A day in the life

• Assess clients’ digital platforms, identify goals, and communicate solutions that help clients achieve their strategic objectives.
• Cultivate an understanding of users’ needs and behaviors through interviews, analytics, and other forms of research. Create personas and user journeys, and represent users’ perspective in planning sessions.
• Conduct product research and lead feature ideation and prioritization sessions.
• Write and maintain functional requirements, ensuring that all functionality, user flows, and edge cases are understood by stakeholders. Documentation could range from lofi sketches to detailed acceptance criteria.
• Develop testing and measurement plans in coordination with strategists and analysts.
• Help create sprint plans and release schedules.
• Manage stakeholder feedback, evaluating all proposed features against the product scope and ensuring that bugs are reported and prioritized correctly. Provide creative recommendations based on your technical expertise when features don’t fit in the budget. Make the tough calls when scope needs to be cut.
• Support the greater Business Development team with the scoping of new client product engagements. Estimate effort, ensure that team members are aligned on what’s being proposed, and guard against proposals that aren’t feasible.
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of general documentation and toolkits within the product management practice.

What we offer

• Unlimited time off (inclusive of sick, personal, and vacation days)
• $1,000 annually in professional development funds
• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible and health savings accounts
• 401K & employer match
• Generous paid holiday schedule
• 12-week fully-paid parental leave for all parents-to-be
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• Remote work flexibility

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is strongly encouraged on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for US staff who are within commuting distance of the BK or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person. To enter our US offices or attend Blue State events, staff and visitors must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including with a booster shot when eligible. Exceptions for protected grounds will be reviewed on a case‑by‑case basis.

The salary range for this position is $91,000–93,000; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Some things we’re looking for

• 5+ years of experience in product management, particularly with website projects.
• Experience with CMS-driven websites, such as those built on WordPress. You will not architect a WordPress site yourself, but you will vet designs and feature requirements for feasibility and judge an engineering team’s progress.
• Familiarity with and interest in marketing platforms, including CRMs, and data and personalization technology used by organizations to engage and mobilize their supporters.
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and JS. You will not need to write any code, but you will need to speak to the capabilities of common web technologies.
• Experienced with using qualitative and quantitative data to make product decisions
• Willingness to wear multiple hats and get into the weeds across product needs including UX design, content strategy, and user research.
• Ability to use wireframes to communicate recommendations to design teams
• Excellent communication skills. Ability to interact with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
• Strong collaborator and relationship builder. Colleagues know they can come to you for help working through issues or opportunities.
• Empathy, positivity, respect, and the ability to be a role model at Blue State.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box below, but this role seems to align with your strengths, we want to hear from you.

Blue State is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible application and interview process. If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact us at [e-mail] with the subject line: Accommodation Request to get started.

Your privacy is important to us. You can find out more information on how we handle your data for recruiting purposes in our Privacy Policy for Recruitment.