Sr. Staff Product Manager

Quizlet; St. Louis (MO); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthy work-life balance

20 vacation days

Health/Dental/Vision insurance

401k with company match

Professional development (LinkedIn | L

Paid Family Leave & FSA/HSA

Volunteer time off

Job summary

Quizlet is seeking a Sr. Staff Product Manager, Payments and Subscription Lifecycle, to own how learners pay, how subscriptions renew, and what happens when a payment fails.

You will shape strategy across checkout, billing infrastructure, and subscription lifecycle mechanics on web, iOS, and Android. You will partner with Engineering, Finance, Legal, and Customer Support to increase successful payments and durable net revenue while reducing billing friction and churn.

Qualifications

• Direct ownership of payments or subscription billing in a scaled consumer business.
• Fluency in gateway and acquirer mechanics including 3D Secure, tokens, and velocity checks.
• Proven track record improving authorization, recurring billing, and dunning.
• Ability to retrieve and analyze authorization and cohort data independently.

Responsibilities

• Set the payments and billing strategy. Identify revenue loss, customer friction, and gaps; define multi-year direction and invest in billing improvements.
• Own checkout and payment success. Improve purchase experience across web, iOS, and Android; optimize across app-store transitions.
• Own subscription lifecycle mechanics. Define billing behavior through trials, renewals, upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations.
• Recover failed payments with improved dunning and retry strategies to recover renewals.
• Lead the billing platform and vendor roadmap; evaluate platforms, gateways, and token vaults; guide integrations/migrations.
• Make billing accurate with tax, invoicing, refunds, and communications; translate obligations into product behavior.
• Enable new offers and international payments; build reusable billing capabilities for market expansion.
• Measure impact with controlled experiments; analyze authorization/cohort data and revenue effects.
• Lead incident response for billing issues; coordinate mitigation and customer resolution.
• Influence senior stakeholders on platform investments and tradeoffs; mentor partners.

Skills

Payments ownership

Subscription billing

Gateway know-how

Dunning & retries

Cross-border payments

Data analysis

Stakeholder influence

Tools

Billing platforms

Tax engines

App-store billing

Job description

About Quizlet:

At Quizlet, our mission is to help every learner achieve their outcomes in the most effective and delightful way. We’re a $1B+ learning platform used by two-thirds of U.S. high school students and half of college students, powering over 1 billion learning interactions each week.

We blend cognitive science with machine learning to personalize and enhance the learning experience for students, professionals, and lifelong learners alike. We’re energized by the potential to power more learners through multiple approaches and various tools.

Let’s Build the Future of Learning

Join us to design and deliver AI-powered learning tools that scale across the world and unlock human potential.

Why Join Quizlet?

Massive reach: 60M+ users, 1B+ interactions per week
Cutting-edge tech: Generative AI, adaptive learning, cognitive science
Strong momentum: Top-tier investors, sustainable business, real traction
Mission-first: Work that makes a difference in people’s lives
Inclusive culture: Committed to equity, diversity, and belonging

About the Team:

Growth and Monetization brings learner growth and revenue together: attract and retain learners we can serve and monetize over the long term. Payments makes purchasing, renewing, and managing a subscription reliable and understandable.

About the Role:

As a Sr. Staff Product Manager, Payments and Subscription Lifecycle, you will own how learners pay, how subscriptions renew, and what happens when a payment fails. You will define the strategy and roadmap across checkout, billing infrastructure, and subscription lifecycle mechanics on web, iOS, and Android. Your mandate is to increase successful payments and durable net revenue while reducing billing frustration and involuntary churn.

Quizlet’s billing environment spans multiple gateways, merchant-of-record configurations, app stores, tax capabilities, and currencies. You will combine strategic judgment with hands‑on investigation of authorization data, billing configurations, and customer issues. This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports, partnering across Engineering, Finance, Accounting, Legal, Customer Support, and our subscriptions and growth PMs.

In this role, you will:

• Set the payments and billing strategy. Identify revenue loss, customer friction, and platform gaps. Define a multi-year direction and sequence investments across payment optimization, subscription infrastructure, and reliability, with clear company-level outcomes.

• Own checkout and payment success. Improve the purchase experience across web, iOS, and Android, including transitions between app-store and web subscriptions. Guide payment methods, authentication, routing, and authorization improvements using funnel and processor data.

• Own subscription lifecycle mechanics. Define how billing and access behave through trials, renewals, upgrades, downgrades, cancellation, and reactivation. Partner with Engineering to keep subscription states, charges, and access consistent across platforms.

• Recover failed payments. Treat dunning and payment recovery as measurable revenue opportunities. Improve decline handling, account updates, network tokens, retry strategies, and customer communications to recover intended renewals without creating avoidable cost or frustration.

• Lead the billing platform and vendor roadmap. Evaluate billing platforms, orchestrators, gateways, processors, and token vaults. Lead vendor selection and commercial negotiations through contract with Finance, Legal, and procurement partners, and guide integrations or migrations with Engineering.

• Make billing accurate and trustworthy. Own product requirements for tax calculation, invoicing, refunds, and billing communications with Finance and Accounting. Partner with Legal to translate applicable auto-renewal and dispute obligations into product behavior and operational processes.

• Enable new offers and international payments. Build reusable billing capabilities for subscription changes and market expansion. Partner with subscriptions on billing feasibility and margin implications, and with growth on currencies, local payment methods, and cross-border purchase barriers.

• Measure and validate impact. Independently investigate authorization and cohort data. Use controlled, ramped experiments to evaluate changes, measuring incremental recovery and net revenue alongside processing costs, refunds, chargebacks, and customer outcomes.

• Lead the response when billing breaks. Coordinate diagnosis, mitigation, and customer resolution with Engineering, Finance, Support, and Legal. Establish rollout safeguards, monitoring, and follow-through that prevent recurring incidents.

• Influence beyond your immediate team. Align senior stakeholders on platform investments and difficult tradeoffs. Strengthen shared decision practices and mentor partners, raising the organization’s ability to deliver reliable payment and subscription experiences.

Scope and partnerships

You own payment and billing mechanics throughout the subscription lifecycle. Subscriptions owns pricing, packaging, paywalls, and conversion before checkout; you provide billing feasibility and economics input. Growth owns international strategy; you own supporting payment capabilities. Content, Trust and Safety, and unrelated launches are outside this role.

What you bring to the table:

• Several years directly owning payments or subscription billing as a PM in a scaled consumer subscription business, including hands‑on work in an enterprise billing platform. Direct ownership is essential; experience limited to growth, paywalls, or adjacent monetization work does not meet this requirement.

• Deep fluency in gateway and acquirer mechanics, including decline codes, network tokens, 3D Secure authentication, velocity checks, and merchant-of-record models. You can investigate configurations and evaluate architecture with Engineering.

• A record of improving authorization, recurring billing, and dunning. You can explain the specific changes you made, their incremental revenue impact, and the consequences for customer experience and costs.

• The ability to retrieve and analyze authorization and cohort data independently, design sound experiments on payment infrastructure, and distinguish payment failures from pricing or product-value issues.

• Cross-border payments experience and experience leading a vendor selection with meaningful commercial stakes through contract. You can evaluate performance, reliability, fees, and operational dependencies together.

• Experience shaping strategy across product areas, delivering company-level impact, and influencing senior stakeholders. You balance immediate revenue opportunities with durable shared capabilities.

• Steady judgment during billing incidents involving technical, financial, legal, and customer concerns. You are comfortable working at invoice and decline-code level while keeping partners aligned on resolution.

• Experience partnering with Finance, Accounting, and Legal on billing accuracy, tax and invoicing requirements, and customer obligations. You translate specialist input into clear product requirements and reliable execution.

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience with both major app-store billing systems and web subscriptions, including subscription transitions and consistency of access across platforms.

• Experience with billing-platform migrations, multiple merchant-of-record configurations, or tax-engine integrations.

Work Location

We’re happy to share that this is a hybrid position in our San Francisco office. To support collaboration, we ask employees to be in the office at least two days a week: Wednesday and Thursday.

Compensation, Benefits & Perks:

• Collaborate with your manager and team to create a healthy work-life balance

• 20 vacation days that we expect you to take!

• Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)

• Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match

• Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth

• Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits

• 40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice

We strive to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome!

We work to create a holistic interview process, where both Quizlet and candidates have an opportunity to view what it would be like to work together, in exploring a mutually beneficial partnership. We provide a transparent setting that gives a comprehensive view of who we are!

In Closing:

At Quizlet, we’re excited about passionate people joining our team—even if you don’t check every box on the requirements list. We value unique perspectives and believe everyone has something meaningful to contribute. Our culture is all about taking initiative, learning through challenges, and striving for high-quality work while staying curious and open to new ideas. We believe in honest, respectful communication, thoughtful collaboration, and creating a supportive space where everyone can grow and succeed together.”

Quizlet’s success as an online learning community depends on a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

As an equal opportunity employer and a tech company committed to societal change, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply.

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