Company Overview

Academia.edu is a venture-backed, for-profit business based in San Francisco whose mission is to accelerate the world’s research. Our platform enables researchers worldwide to effortlessly find and access academic papers, stay current with peers and relevant research areas, and enhance their ability to publish and distribute their work. With over 100 million academic papers, a vast user base of over 250 million and adoption by over half of the academic community, we're at the forefront of transforming the $25 billion academic publishing industry.

The Role

We are seeking a high-performing Product Leader to lead our ‘Core Services’ Products group. This group of product teams is responsible for key technologies and platforms leveraged across the company (including recommendations, payments, profile/identity management, and more). In this role, you will power the product teams responsible for providing our key technologies across the site. The area of responsibility spikes on platform services, including experiences that serve customers directly and that power experiences that support other teams internally. You will be responsible for 2 product teams to start, both with PMs in seats and the need to develop (and hire) the area further, with an initial goal of building out the team upwards of 4 product teams by early 2025.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the roadmap for our ranking / recommendation efforts, driving alignment with exec stakeholders
• Own the payment platform globally; help us identify merchants, banks, vendors, methods that drive more subscription (and reduce cancellations) on Academia
• Hire and support a high-performing product team; both with current roles and with expected future roles soon to emerge
• IC a product team in the early stages of your time with us, in order to show execution excellence and model performance to your reports
• Advocate for and provide best practices for product as a function, in both your area and across the company

• 7-12 years of product experience, with a focus on B2C products
• Previous experience in one of recommendations/ranking/relevance work, the payments tech stack, or user identity / data management work
• Previous experience hiring and leveling-up PMs
• Strong IC product skills; you know how to “lead from the front” and teach best practices
• Demonstrated ability to make a significant business impact, autonomously
• Exceptional communication skills, both written and oral
• Customer-centric approach with a knack for data-driven validation
• Extensive experience with A/B testing and user research (both qualitative and quantitative)
• Experience working with cross-functional teams (ENG, UXR, Data, Design) and exec leaders
• Startup experience is essential; bonus for a history of successful product pivots
• Technical understanding and ability to engage in high-level technical discussions
• Proven expertise in launching and scaling systems that support millions of users

• Experience in Edtech or academia
• A stint in growth-stage tech companies during a ‘high-growth’ period

Diversity and Inclusion

Academia is a proud equal-opportunity employer and we are committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.