Head of Product and Growth
10+ years
New York City Metropolitan Area
Full-time
Hybrid
1 month ago
About the role
IE Media, Inc. is a leading global digital media publisher reaching millions of readers and over 25 million social media followers with the most important and exciting developments in technology, engineering, and science. From the ground-level engineering of global conflict to the mind-expanding science at the edge of the cosmos, we write for a global audience that geeks out about how things work — the inventors, the engineers, the curious.
IE’s portfolio includes our flagship Interesting Engineering brand and Military Mechanics, a defense-technology vertical. Our fast-paced, international team spans multiple continents and time zones, united by a shared commitment to quality journalism, ethical reporting, and the belief that knowledge is power. As the publishing landscape transforms at speed — with AI reshaping newsrooms, Google Discover rewriting distribution rules, and audiences demanding both speed and depth — we are looking for a next-generation editorial leader who can thrive at the intersection of journalism, technology, and commercial growth.
We are looking for a head of product & growth. You'll own product, growth, and subscriptions across IE Media. Traffic, distribution, paywall, pricing, onboarding, retention — all yours. You'll partner closely with our Editor in Chief on IE+, our new paid subscription product, and own the commercial side of the build: how it works, what it costs, how people find it, why they convert, and why they stay.
You'll report directly to the CEO and operate as a peer to the EIC. Together, you're the two people accountable for turning IE Media from a high-traffic publisher into a subscription business.
Why This Job Is Different:
We already have what most publishers wish they had: real audience scale, real authority in science and engineering, and a brand that technologists actually trust. What we don't have yet is a paid product that captures the value. That's what you're here to build. This is a builder's seat, not an optimizer's. You're not joining to A/B test someone else's funnel. You're specifying the funnel, picking the paywall model, designing the pricing, choosing the platforms, and writing the playbook from a blank page. The CEO is in the building. Decisions get made in days, not quarters.
Responsibilities:
Requirements:
What Sets You Apart:
Compensation:
How We Work:
We're a startup, not a legacy publisher. That means:
Not For You If…:
IE is dedicated to supporting its diverse and inclusive editorial staff. IE urges women, people of color, armed forces veterans, people with disabilities, and gender-nonconforming people to apply. IE does not discriminate based on sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, affectional choice, or gender identity. We recognize a person’s unique experiences as points of strength and welcome them as journalists on our team, working in service of the mission to explore and report on engineering, in whatever form it takes.
IE’s portfolio includes our flagship Interesting Engineering brand and Military Mechanics, a defense-technology vertical. Our fast-paced, international team spans multiple continents and time zones, united by a shared commitment to quality journalism, ethical reporting, and the belief that knowledge is power. As the publishing landscape transforms at speed — with AI reshaping newsrooms, Google Discover rewriting distribution rules, and audiences demanding both speed and depth — we are looking for a next-generation editorial leader who can thrive at the intersection of journalism, technology, and commercial growth.
We are looking for a head of product & growth. You'll own product, growth, and subscriptions across IE Media. Traffic, distribution, paywall, pricing, onboarding, retention — all yours. You'll partner closely with our Editor in Chief on IE+, our new paid subscription product, and own the commercial side of the build: how it works, what it costs, how people find it, why they convert, and why they stay.
You'll report directly to the CEO and operate as a peer to the EIC. Together, you're the two people accountable for turning IE Media from a high-traffic publisher into a subscription business.
Why This Job Is Different:
We already have what most publishers wish they had: real audience scale, real authority in science and engineering, and a brand that technologists actually trust. What we don't have yet is a paid product that captures the value. That's what you're here to build. This is a builder's seat, not an optimizer's. You're not joining to A/B test someone else's funnel. You're specifying the funnel, picking the paywall model, designing the pricing, choosing the platforms, and writing the playbook from a blank page. The CEO is in the building. Decisions get made in days, not quarters.
Responsibilities:
- Paywall strategy and implementation — metered, hard, hybrid, segment-targeted. Test, iterate, ship.
- Pricing architecture — tiers, trials, annual vs. monthly, regional pricing, team plans.
- Onboarding and activation flows. What does a new paying member see in their first 7 days, and how do we make them stick?
- Retention mechanics — engagement loops, member-only features, lifecycle communications, churn intervention.
- The full conversion funnel from free reader → trial → paid → retained. Own the model, the assumptions, the metrics.
- Partner with the Editor in Chief on editorial product decisions that affect conversion and churn. They build what we publish; you build why it converts.
- Own the traffic playbook across Google Search, Discover, Google News, Apple News, MSN, Yahoo, SmartNews, Samsung News, NewsBreak, social, and email.
- Build IE Media's news-app strategy: which platforms to prioritize, what content performs where, what each one actually pays, and how to negotiate up.
- Use daily performance data to inform distribution decisions. Diagnose algorithm changes and lead recovery.
- Run SEO and Discover Engine Optimization (DEO) infrastructure — topical authority, E-E-A-T signals, technical SEO, content velocity.
- Partner with editorial on what to publish, when, and where to push it. You don't tell them what to write; you tell them what's performing and why.
- Own the site, app, and member-experience product roadmap.
- Hire and lead a small product team — one PM, one designer, one embedded engineering lead (or fewer, depending on stage).
- Prioritize ruthlessly. Ship weekly. Kill features that don't move metrics.
- Specify and ship AI-native product features: personalization, recommendations, smart paywalling, AI-assisted member experiences.
- Build and run the growth analytics stack. We need real, daily visibility into the funnel — not a quarterly dashboard.
- Run experiments. Document what works. Compound the learnings.
- Hire and lead a small growth team — one growth marketer, one SEO/Discover specialist, one analyst.
Requirements:
- 8+ years in product or growth, with at least one senior role at a major digital publisher OR a consumer subscription company. You've shipped paid subscription products at scale.
- A subscription growth track record with real numbers. You can walk us through a paywall you built, a pricing test you ran, a churn intervention you shipped — and what each one moved.
- Deep traffic fluency. Search, Discover, news apps, social, email. You don't need to be a hands-on SEO expert, but you've owned the metric and led specialists who are.
- News-app fluency. Apple News, MSN, Yahoo, SmartNews, Samsung News, NewsBreak. You know the players, the editorial requirements of each platform, and what each one actually pays.
- Quantitative DNA. SQL or equivalent. You don't ask analysts to pull data for you; you pull it yourself when you need to.
- Product instinct. You've specced products, written PRDs, worked alongside engineers, made hard trade-offs. You can hold your own with a senior engineer on implementation choices.
- AI-native product thinking. You've shipped AI-powered features into a real product, not just prototyped them. You can talk specifics: which tools, which workflows, what worked, what didn't.
- Strong partner instinct. You'll be working hand-in-glove with the EIC. That relationship has to work. You see editorial as a co-equal partner, not a content factory.
- NYC-based, comfortable in person at our NYC hub 3+ days/week.
What Sets You Apart:
- You've personally taken a publisher from zero (or near zero) paid subscriptions to a meaningful subscription business, with numbers you can show.
- You have direct relationships with growth and BD teams at Apple News, SmartNews, MSN, Yahoo, Samsung News.
- You've built and shipped editorial AI features — personalization, smart paywalls, AI-driven recommendations — at scale.
- You've worked inside a founder-led startup before. You know what "ship now, perfect later" actually means in practice.
- You bring a network of senior product, growth, engineering, and data talent who would follow you.
Compensation:
- Strong base salary, benchmarked to senior product and growth leadership in NYC.
- IE+ growth participation tied to net retained ARR, paid quarterly. You carry this number — you share materially in the upside.
- Milestone bonuses at defined IE+ subscriber thresholds.
- Equity. We're hiring an owner. We're paying you like one.
- NYC hybrid: 3+ days/week at our hub, the rest flexible. Travel for partner meetings (Apple News, Google, news apps) and team gatherings as needed.
How We Work:
We're a startup, not a legacy publisher. That means:
- Decisions get made fast and adjusted faster.
- Slack is the nervous system. Asana is the spine.
- The CEO is reachable and so is everyone else. No moats, no gatekeeping.
- We hire owners and we trust them. We don't manage by surveillance.
- We ship, measure, and iterate. We don't write strategy decks to defend bad ideas.
Not For You If…:
- You need a fully-built team, a clean tech stack, and a year of runway to ship anything.
- You're a strategy consultant in product clothing. We need someone who ships, not someone who writes decks.
- You don't personally use the subscription products you build.
- You think growth is a marketing function rather than a product function.
- You can't operate without a large team beneath you.
- You see editorial as an input to your funnel rather than a partner in product decisions.
- "Founder energy" makes you tired just reading it.
IE is dedicated to supporting its diverse and inclusive editorial staff. IE urges women, people of color, armed forces veterans, people with disabilities, and gender-nonconforming people to apply. IE does not discriminate based on sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, affectional choice, or gender identity. We recognize a person’s unique experiences as points of strength and welcome them as journalists on our team, working in service of the mission to explore and report on engineering, in whatever form it takes.
Skills
Internet Publishing