Product Manager, Newsroom Tools

Join the hundreds of talented and innovative team members who are making an impact every day at California Times, incorporating Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, two of the most iconic media brands in the nation. Whether you love to tell compelling stories or want to drive our award-winning powerhouse in new directions, the Los Angeles Times team is the place to be.
Summary
About the L.A. Times
Our mission is to inform, engage, and empower. Our storytelling and journalism help people in Los Angeles, in California and across the globe understand their world and make real decisions about their civic, social, personal, health, family and work lives. Our Product team creates and innovates user experiences across web and mobile apps for both the L.A. Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune that help users and subscribers find the best and most relevant content they’ll love, come back for and pay for.
We’re making big, bold bets with a keen focus on user-centered problem-solving and big investments in talent across Product, Engineering and Data. We’re energized to find high-impact leaders to help us do big things.
About The Role And The Team
In this role, you’ll shape the tools and capabilities that power our journalism. The way we plan, create, package, curate and distribute our work is a fundamental element of our business and the primary focus of this position. You’ll partner closely with our newsroom, design and engineering teams to evolve our Content Management System and develop new, impactful formats. You’ll also have an advantage of building on top of a robust toolset, pushing it to the next level through measurable workflow successes.
This position is remote eligible.
Responsibilities

• Manage launches - including communication, developing adoption/training plans and coordinating with cross-functional teams.
• Ensure daily high-quality operations of our CMS, as we continue to evolve through robust feedback loops.
• Establish and drive alignment on a product vision throughout the company, including senior leadership.
• Create and maintain a living roadmap informed by the “why” behind what we build.
• Collaborate closely with Newsroom Tools team members, including designers, engineers, UX researchers, and other cross-functional teams, in product discovery & product delivery.
• Monitor and analyze product performance metrics, user feedback, and market trends to inform product decisions and iterate on product features and functionalities.
• Lead the strategic vision for our Content Management System, Graphene, and primary user experience for our journalists. This includes building improvements on a strong foundation, championing effective workflows and telling stories in bold, novel ways.
• Collaborate and align with our Data Science and User Experience Research teams to discover opportunities and measure impact.
• Partner with Editorial to evolve our toolset, establish workflow best-practices and ensure new feature adoption.
• Assess a variety of techniques to hypothesize and quantify the biggest opportunities for our journalists and our business through product research and data analysis.

Qualifications

• Domain expert in journalism, content management tools, and/or consumer-facing web
• Utilize computers, software systems and tools to support internal and external partners.
• Superior communication: verbal and written.
• Experience locating clarity and focus amid ambiguity and complexity.
• Prioritize competing tasks to meet deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills such as empathy, active listening, & emotional intelligence
• Balance of technical knowledge and business acumen.
• Stay up to date with industry trends and best practices in content management, publishing tools, and media technology to ensure our products are cutting-edge and meet industry standards
• Create and regularly update processes and documentation.
• Excellent problem solving and organizational skills.
• Effectively communicate in verbal and written form to collaborate and liaison with stakeholders to address production issues.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment while also contributing to process improvement efforts.
• Versed in Agile methodologies including creating user stories for engineering teams
• Ability to use data-driven and methodical approaches to decision making.
• 2+ years of product management experience and/or 5+ years’ experience in digital publishing and/or journalism
• Demonstrated results of influencing and driving strategy and culture within Product and Engineering, across departments and with company leadership
• Adapt to rapidly changing business needs with sense of urgency to address critical operational issues using cognitive judgment.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

The L.A. Times is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes expressions of interest from people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Explore our company history, achievement, values, mission and more on our career site.
The pay scale for this position is $130,000-$165,000. This is the pay scale range the Company reasonably expects to pay for this position at the time of this posting. Compensation will be determined based on skills, qualifications and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position. Please visit our career site to view the benefits available to our employees.
The Company is a mandatory vaccination employer for COVID-19 and its variants. The Company requires that its employees be fully vaccinated as of their start date. If you require a medical or religious accommodation, we will engage in the interactive process with you. Proof of vaccination will be required prior to start. If we make you an offer and you are not yet vaccinated, we will accommodate a delay in start date.

Thank you for your interest in joining our team at the Los Angeles Times! We look forward to reviewing your application.