Principal Product Manager I

Job Title

Job Description

About The Position | Major goals and objectives and location requirements

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Principal Product Manager to own and evolve the core services, platforms, and content management systems (CMS) that power the PEOPLE app. This role focuses on building scalable, reliable, and flexible platforms that enable editorial, product, and engineering teams to efficiently deliver high-quality consumer experiences at scale.

This is a senior individual contributor role requiring strong systems thinking, deep collaboration across functions, and the ability to balance immediate delivery needs with long-term platform health and leverage. The Principal Product Manager will partner closely with engineering, design, editorial, and other product teams to define platform strategy, execute against complex roadmaps, and unlock velocity across the organization for one of the most iconic brands in media.

Hybrid 3x a week- (New York, NY)

In-office Expectations: This position is hybrid in-office, with the ability to work remotely for up to 2 days per week.

About The Positions Contributions:

Accountabilities, Actions and Expected Measurable Results:

• Own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for core app services and CMS platforms that support multiple product surfaces and internal teams across the PEOPLE app ecosystem.

• Lead the execution of platform initiatives, balancing short-term business and editorial needs with long-term scalability, reliability, and maintainability.

• Serve as the primary product partner for internal customers (including editorial, business, content operations, engineering, and other product teams), deeply understanding their workflows, pain points, and success metrics.

• Be accountable for platform success through measurable outcomes such as internal adoption, content velocity, publish latency, system reliability, and downstream impact on consumer-facing experiences.

• Collaborate closely with engineering to shape technical strategy, including service architectures, APIs, data models, integrations, and platform capabilities.

• Manage platform dependencies across teams, align stakeholders on priorities, and reduce duplication of effort through shared services and clear product direction.

• Use qualitative and quantitative insights to inform prioritization and decision-making, validating solutions through internal user testing, phased rollouts, and experimentation where appropriate.

• Lead platform migrations, system improvements, and deprecations while minimizing disruption to internal teams and maintaining operational stability.

• Act as a hands-on platform product expert and mentor, sharing best practices and contributing to the overall maturity of product management within the organization.

The Role's Minimum Qualifications and Job Requirements:

Education:Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Business, or related field (MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred).

Experience:

• 7+ years of product management experience, including ownership of platforms, services, CMS, or internal tools that support multiple stakeholders and product surfaces.

• Proven experience defining and managing complex roadmaps for foundational systems in collaboration with engineering and cross-functional partners.

• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity, technical constraints, and competing priorities to deliver durable platform solutions.

• Experience supporting content-heavy, media, or editorial-driven products is a strong plus.

Specific Knowledge, Skills, Certifications and Abilities:

• Strong systems thinking with the ability to design and evolve platforms that balance flexibility, consistency, and speed.

• Understanding of how platform services and CMS systems support and scale high-quality mobile app experiences across iOS and Android.

• Experience partnering with engineering on service-oriented architectures, APIs, and data-driven systems.

• Comfort working with legacy systems, platform migrations, and long-term technical investments.

• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and modern product development practices.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align diverse teams around shared platform goals.

It is the policy of People Inc. to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, the Company will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.Accommodation requests can be made by emailing hr@people.inc.

The Company participates in the federal E-Verify program to confirm the identity and employment authorization of all newly hired employees. For further information about the E-Verify program, please click here: https://www.e-verify.gov/employees

Pay Range

The pay range above represents the anticipated low and high end of the pay range for this position and may change in the future. Actual pay may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to work location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of People Inc's total compensation package for employees. Other compensation may include annual bonuses, and short- and long-term incentives. In addition,People Inc. provides to employees (and their eligible family members) a variety of benefits, including medical, dental, vision, prescription drug coverage, unlimited paid time off (PTO), adoption or surrogate assistance, donation matching, tuition reimbursement, basic life insurance, basic accidental death & dismemberment, supplemental life insurance, supplemental accident insurance, commuter benefits, short term and long term disability, health savings and flexible spending accounts, family care benefits, a generous 401K savings plan with a company match program, 10-12 paid holidays annually, and generous paid parental leave (birthing and non-birthing parents), all of which may vary depending on the specific nature of your employment with People Inc. and your work location. We also offer voluntary benefits such as pet insurance, accident, critical and hospital indemnity health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance.