Product Manager - Payments

Substack; United States; Remote; USD 210,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Exceptional benefits

Market-competitive salary

Job summary

Substack is hiring a Product Manager to expand monetization by improving gifting, retention offers and the checkout experience for readers and creators. You will work with Payments Engineering, Design, Data, Growth and Creator Product to build data-informed, high-impact features, from plan selection to renewal, with opportunities in commerce and ads as the company evolves.

You’ll run experiments, use AI-powered prototyping, and partner with engineering to ship effective, trusted financial

Qualifications

• Shipping products that improve meaningful customer or business outcomes with a clear contribution.
• Strategic thinking and strong product judgment using data and insight.
• Curiosity about how creators earn a living and what readers pay for.
• Analytical strength including funnel and cohort analysis and experimentation.
• AI-native approach with rapid working prototypes to test ideas.
• Strong design sense and craft with attention to financial product clarity.
• Clear writing and ability to align partners around decisions.
• Comfort with ambiguity and limited resources, able to ship and learn.
• Experience in payments, subscriptions, growth, commerce, marketplaces or creator products.

Responsibilities

• Identify valuable opportunities to improve creator earnings and define a focused roadmap.
• Develop gifting experiences to help readers support creators and strengthen communities.
• Improve retention, renewal and win-back experiences with offers and lifecycle improvements.
• Make payment journeys clearer across web and mobile from plan selection to renewal.
• Explore new monetization pathways including commerce and ads as the business evolves.
• Use customer research, data analysis and rapid AI prototyping to validate ideas.
• Partner with engineering and design to make timely decisions and maintain quality.
• Define success metrics, run experiments and follow through after launches.
• Translate creator needs into reusable product capabilities and communicate launches clearly.

Skills

Product management

Data analysis

AI prototyping

Experimentation

Cross-functional leadership

Communication

Job description

About the company

the company helps independent writers, artists, podcasters, videographers and other creators build sustainable businesses through direct relationships with their audiences. We are building products that give creators more freedom, ownership and ways to earn from their work.

The Role

We're looking for a Product Manager to help expand monetization on the company.

You'll build better ways for readers to support creators and make the experience of paying for great work simpler and more rewarding. Your scope will include gifting, retention offers and improvements to the payment and subscription experience, with opportunities to explore commerce and, over time, advertising-related monetization.

You’ll work closely with Payments Engineering, Design, Data, Growth and Creator Product, as well as Chris Chen and the C-level leadership team. You'll develop a clear, data-informed point of view on what to build and advocate for it with conviction, while staying open to evidence and feedback. You'll get close to creators and readers and move comfortably between product strategy and the details of a checkout flow, an offer, an AI-built prototype or an experiment readout.

This is an individual contributor role. We are considering candidates who can independently lead a focused feature area as well as those ready to own a broader product area end to end, with scope calibrated to demonstrated experience and impact.

What you'll do

• Identify the most valuable opportunities to improve creator earnings and build a focused roadmap with clear goals and trade-offs.

• Develop gifting experiences that help readers support creators, share value with others and strengthen paid communities.

• Improve retention, renewal and win-back experiences, partnering with Growth on offers and subscription lifecycle improvements.

• Make payment journeys clearer and more effective across web and mobile, from plan selection and checkout through successful payment and renewal.

• Explore new monetization pathways, including commerce, and help shape future opportunities in ads as the business evolves.

• Use customer research, direct data analysis and rapid AI-powered prototyping to explore solutions and validate ideas before committing engineering time.

• Partner with engineering and design to make timely decisions, cut scope to learn sooner and maintain a high bar for product quality.

• Define success metrics, run experiments, read results honestly and follow through after launch.

• Translate recurring creator needs and support issues into reusable product capabilities; communicate launches clearly with cross-functional partners.

What we're looking for

• A record of shipping products that improve meaningful customer or business outcomes, with a clear account of your contribution.

• Strategic thinking and strong product judgment: you can use data and customer insight to form an independent point of view, make clear trade-offs and advocate strongly for your recommendations, including with senior leaders, while changing course when evidence calls for it.

• Deep curiosity about how creators earn a living and how readers decide what to pay for.

• Analytical strength, including funnel and cohort analysis, experimentation and the ability to investigate questions directly.

• An AI-native approach to product development: you use AI tools and agents as part of your everyday workflow and can rapidly build working prototypes to test ideas and answer questions yourself.

• Strong design taste and product craft: you can recognize and help shape intuitive, polished experiences, with attention to the details that make financial products understandable and trustworthy. You may have developed this judgment at a company known for excellent design or demonstrated it through products you've built.

• Clear writing and the ability to align engineering, design, data and business partners around decisions.

• Comfort with ambiguity and limited resources, and a willingness to do the detailed work needed to ship and learn.

• Experience in payments, subscriptions, growth, commerce, marketplaces or creator products would be especially useful. Familiarity with payment providers and mobile purchase ecosystems is a plus.

Why this role

The ways people support creators are still evolving. This role offers the chance to improve a core economic relationship on the company while developing new ways for creators to build durable businesses.

the company's compensation package includes a market-competitive salary, equity for all full-time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation range for this role is $210,000–$230,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise.

the company is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you.

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