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Salary: USD 185,000 - 250,000 / annual
Substack is seeking a Product Manager to lead the Sponsorships product line, which enables creators to earn revenue alongside paid subscriptions while maintaining control over brand partnerships and reader trust.
You will own the full product strategy and execution for Substack Sponsorships, from new sponsorship formats to advertiser and publisher tools to the foundations of a scalable marketplace. This is a hands-on role requiring partnership across Engineering, Design, Data, Partnerships, and the business team.
Key responsibilities include:
- Setting product direction by synthesizing publisher and advertiser feedback, product data, and company priorities into a roadmap balancing near-term experiments and longer-term platform work.
- Building distinctive sponsorship experiences across email, web, and app that fit naturally into Substack and help readers discover writers and become subscribers.
- Owning the advertiser experience: making it easy for brands and agencies to discover publications, plan and book campaigns, manage approvals, and measure results. Building the path from managed to self-service buying.
- Creating publisher tools for opting in, setting preferences, approving opportunities, managing placements, and tracking earnings while preserving control over brand partnerships.
- Building marketplace and operating foundations in partnership with Engineering and Ad Operations, including matching, inventory forecasting, campaign delivery, pacing, billing, and payouts.
- Owning the measurement roadmap across delivery, reach, engagement, brand lift, and conversion outcomes. Defining success metrics, dashboards, and experiments while respecting reader privacy.
- Balancing growth with trust by partnering with Policy, Legal, and core Product on advertiser eligibility, sponsorship disclosure, data use, and ad quality.
- Owning execution and adoption by scoping, prototyping, and shipping improvements with your Engineering counterpart, and working with the business team on launch plans and adoption.
Requirements:
- 10+ years of product management experience, including meaningful ownership of advertising, monetization, or marketplace products and a record of delivering work across teams.
- Track record of launching new products and growing adoption and revenue, with ability to explain decisions, tradeoffs, and results.
- Strong understanding of how brands and agencies buy media, how publishers earn revenue, and how campaign delivery and measurement work.
- Technical fluency across ad serving, data systems, APIs, and third-party integrations, with judgment to choose practical solutions for an early-stage business.
- Strong product judgment and analytical skills: ability to investigate customer behavior, build analyses, choose useful success metrics, and interpret experiments. Balance ease of use, commercial needs, and long-term product quality.
- High agency and clear written communication. Ability to make persuasive cases for priorities, write useful product specs, and explain decisions to technical and commercial partners.
- Understanding of Substack's product and the needs of creators and readers. Care about independent publishing and ability to explain how sponsorships help creators build sustainable businesses.
Especially relevant: experience building an advertising business from early stages, developing self-service buying or publisher monetization tools, working with creator/newsletter/podcast/subscription businesses, or integrating measurement or programmatic demand partners.
