Director, Product Management, Consumer Growth

San Francisco, CA (hybrid)

Everyone is welcome at Handshake. We know diverse teams build better products and we are committed to creating an inclusive culture built on a foundation of respect for all individuals. We strongly encourage candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, historically marginalized or underrepresented groups to apply.

Your impact

Handshake is hiring a Director, Product Management, Consumer Growth, reporting to the President and Chief Product Officer. This person will drive the strategy and execution of our consumer growth strategy, helping Handshake continue in its evolution from the top college job board to the career network for Gen Z, as reflected in a majority share of the early talent audience using Handshake daily / weekly / monthly along their career journey.

This role has a unique opportunity to work alongside the CEO, President and other top leaders of the company to drive an increase in the top company KPI, consumer engagement, and to make Handshake ubiquitous with Gen Z and the people who want to recruit them. Handshake has been evolving the foundations of our marketplace to make it possible for anyone to use Handshake and share content (their profile, a helpful video, a new job) to friends and family outside of Handshake, and to build out the foundations of a social content & community experience that meets more user needs around career discovery and exploration, in addition to the active job search. All of these investments are now live or about to launch, providing all ingredients for a high-powered growth team to build the activation and engagement loops that can make Handshake ubiquitous with Gen Z - students, alumni, young employees or all the above - by solving real problems along their career journey.

To achieve this vision, you’ll be leading a team of PMs, engineers, designers and marketers and collaborating closely with our partnerships teams to build a truly game-changing consumer product and dramatically inflect our consumer engagement and the Handshake market opportunity. 

Your role

  • Product strategy. Develop the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for growth product areas including registration, activation, onboarding, and retention loops.
  • Product development: You’ll lead a high performing cross-functional squad, collaborating closely with your engineering and design partners, from research and roadmap planning to delivery.
  • Goals, metrics and tracking: Define goals and own performance against key business metrics for growth, and proactively drive accountability towards those goals.
  • Leadership and alignment. You’ll represent your squad and product area to executives, and translate company-wide strategies to your squad and into your roadmap. You’ll inspire your team on the product vision.
  • Launch and adoption: You’ll partner closely with marketing and our sales teams to bring our products to life. You never hesitate to roll up your sleeves and tackle something hands-on. It’s never someone else’s problem. You’ll run beta programs and pilots to maximize learning and minimize code investment, getting close to the customer and the details through the process. 
  • Cross-functional partnership: You’ll work with stakeholders across consumer and B2B teams, and on other sides of the Handshake marketplace EDU Partners to innovate quickly but deliberately

Your experience

  • 3+ years experience building and leading consumer growth teams that drove demonstrable, business-inflecting growth while partnering with others in product, eng and marketing.
  • 7+ years PM experience partnering with engineering teams to ship code. Ideally in a many-stakeholder environment with dependencies and collaboration.
  • Strong systems and analytical thinker. Can connect the dots, spot challenges and edge cases, integrate multiple considerations.
  • Working knowledge of data-driven applications including mapping, schemas, permissions that inform user interactions and downstream analytics.
  • User focused. You dive headfirst into understanding the needs of employers and build products grounded in data and research.
  • Data obsessed. You marry your user focus with a commitment to rigorous data analysis. You live in the data enough to develop intuition about opportunity sizing and identify new trends or opportunities vs one-off blips.

Who is the right candidate?

You are obsessed with driving growth. You consistently drive demonstrable impact for your companies, improving the experience for users and inflecting the business. You set the pace and the tone for your teams, knowing that growth impact is driven in part by maximizing shots on goal, balancing speed and perfection. You have high expectations for yourself and your teams and inspire others to meet your high bar. 

And you care. A lot. You care about your work, your team, the people using your product and about the mission of Handshake to help everyone find a great job and build a great career. And it shows in everything you do. 

Compensation range

  • $250,000-$270,000

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all U.S.-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. In order to be compliant with local legislation, as well as to provide greater transparency to candidates, we share salary ranges on all job postings regardless of desired hiring location. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including geographic location as well as candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amounts listed above.

About us

Handshake is the career platform for Gen Z. With a community of over 17 million students, alumni, employers, and career educators, Handshake’s network is where career advice and discovery turn into first, second, and third jobs. Nearly 1 million companies use Handshake to build their future workforce—from Fortune 500 to federal agencies, school districts to startups, healthcare systems to small businesses. Handshake is built for where you’re going, not where you’ve been.

When it comes to our workforce strategy, we’ve thought deeply about how work-life should look at Handshake. With our hybrid-work model, employees benefit from collaboration and shared team experiences three days per week in our vibrant offices, and enjoy the flexibility of remote work two days per week. Handshake is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, London, and Berlin.

What we offer

At Handshake, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure.

Benefits below apply to employees in full-time positions.

  • 💰 Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company.
  • 🍼 16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents.
  • 💝 Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGTBQ+ Coverage. We also provide resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support.
  • 💻 Handshake offers $500/£360 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months to create a productive and comfortable workspace at home.
  • 📚 Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual $2,000/£1,500/€1,850 stipend for you to grow your skills and career.
  • 💰 Financial coaching through Origin to help you through your financial journey.
  • 🛜 Monthly internet stipend and a brand new MacBook to allow you to do your best work.
  • 🚃 Monthly commuter stipend for you to expense your travel to the office (for office-based employees).
  • 🥗 Free lunch provided twice a week across all offices.
  • 🤝 Referral bonus to reward you when you bring great talent to Handshake.

(US-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

  • 🏦 401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
  • 🏝 All full-time US-based Handshakers are eligible for our flexible time off policy to get out and see the world. In addition, we offer 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off. Lastly, we have a Winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off.
  • 🍼 Family support: We partner with Milk Stork to provide comprehensive 100% employer-sponsored lactation support to traveling parents and guardians. Parental leave coaching and support provided by Parentaly.

(UK-specific benefits, in addition to the first section) 

  • 🏦 Pension Scheme: Handshake will provide you with a workplace pension, where you will make contributions based on 5% of your salary. Handshake will pay the equivalent of 3% towards your pension plan, subject to qualifying earnings limits.
  • 🏝 Up to 25 days of vacation to encourage people to reset, recharge, and refresh, in addition to 8 bank holidays throughout the year.
  • 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco.
  • 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake UK employees.

(Germany-specific benefits, in addition to the first section)

  • 🏝 25 days of annual leave + 5 days of a winter #ShakeBreak, a one-week period of Collective Time Off across the company.
  • 🤝 Regular offsites each year to bring the team together + opportunity to travel to our HQ in San Francisco once a year.
  • 🧘 Urban sports club membership offering access to a diverse network of fitness and wellness facilities.
  • 🛍️ Discounts across various high street retailers, cinemas and other social activities exclusively for Handshake Germany employees.

Looking for more? Explore our mission, values and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.

Handshake is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at people-hr@joinhandshake.com.

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