Product Manager II, Games

Mission Overview & Responsibilities: 

The mission of The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. Independent journalism is at the heart of all we do, and we focus deeply on how our readers experience our work across a world‑class digital and app destination.

NYT Games aims to be the premier destination for digital puzzle games. It publishes human‑made puzzles daily, including beloved games like Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, and the New York Times Crossword. These games are played by tens of millions each week. Our Games business is a key driver of subscription growth and long‑term subscriber value.

The Subscriber experience team ensures subscribers deepen their daily habit with NYT Games. They do this by clearly connecting and communicating the value of their subscription, giving them experiences they don't want to play without, and creating exclusive features worth paying for. Together, these efforts support the long‑term health of the New York Times subscription business.

About the Role

We're hiring a Product Manager II for the Games Missions in our Player Experience Group to own how subscribers discover, engage with, and build habits around NYT Games.

Your focus is on connecting subscribers to the value they're getting: helping them understand the core benefits, build regular engagement patterns, and experience the full breadth of our game portfolio. You'll design onboarding experiences that turn new subscribers into engaged players, build interventions to re-engage those who show signs of disengagement, and strengthen their connection to the games they love.

You'll join a cross‑functional team with dedicated leads across product, engineering, design, data, QA, and production.

This is a hybrid role based in our New York City office.

Responsibilities:

• You will help accelerate our subscriber growth by optimizing how subscribers experience, discover, activate, engage with, and stay in the platform.

• Design and optimize the onboarding journey to help new subscribers quickly discover value, understand their benefits, and build lasting engagement habits

• Identify friction points and at-risk users through behavioral analysis, then ship targeted interventions to improve activation and reduce churn

• Run experiments to test hypotheses around onboarding, feature adoption, and engagement tactics, then iterate based on results

• Analyze user behavior using cohort analysis, drop-off patterns, and lifecycle metrics to produce data-driven hypotheses and prioritize high-impact opportunities

• Contribute to the roadmap for our subscriber growth and deliver highly relevant, inspiring experiences to drive long-term value for subscribers

• Define success metrics for your initiatives, monitor experiment performance, and partner with a data analyst to build dashboards to track impact

• Own end-to-end product features through their entire cycle: ideation, specification, development, release, analysis, and iteration

• Collaborate with engineering, design, data science, research, and marketing to deliver solutions ranging from small optimizations to multi-surface experiences

• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world.

• You will report to the Product Director for the Games Mission.

Basic Qualifications: 

• 3+ years of product management experience at a high-growth consumer tech company or subscription product.

• 1+ year of experience optimizing the growth funnel.

• Experience optimizing growth funnel across signup, onboarding, activation, or retention - you've driven measurable improvements to metrics while never losing sight of end-user experience and value delivery.

• Experience A/B testing and using data and insights to inform product development.

• A hypothesis-driven, iterative approach to product development - you know how to build and ship with imperfect data rather than waiting for perfect infrastructure.

• Experience prioritizing and delivering results for multiple projects in a collaborative environment.

• Experience partnering with data, engineering, and design to translate insights into shipped features.

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience working on subscription business models in consumer products (media, SaaS, gaming, or fitness) with an understanding of subscription mechanics.

• Background in products where engagement frequency and habit formation promote long-term value.

• Interest in games and puzzles! You're an active player who understands what makes these experiences engaging.

REQ-019616

#LI-Hybrid

For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs. 

For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.

The New York Times Company is committed to being the world’s best source of independent, reliable and quality journalism. To do so, we embrace a diverse workforce that has a broad range of backgrounds and experiences across our ranks, at all levels of the organization. We encourage people from all  backgrounds to apply.

We are  an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of an individual's sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation or affectional preference, gender identity and expression, disability, genetic trait or predisposition, carrier status, citizenship, veteran or military status and other personal characteristics protected by law. All applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics.  The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s Know Your Rights Poster is available here. 

The New York Times Company will provide reasonable accommodations as required by applicable federal, state, and/or local laws. Individuals seeking an accommodation for the application or interview process should email reasonable.accommodations@nytimes.com. Emails sent for unrelated issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

The Company encourages those with criminal histories to apply, and will consider their applications in a manner consistent with applicable "Fair Chance" laws, including but not limited to the NYC Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act.

For information about The New York Times' privacy practices for job applicants click here.

Please beware of fraudulent job postings. Scammers may post fraudulent job opportunities, and they may even make fraudulent employment offers. This is done by bad actors to collect personal information and money from victims. All legitimate job opportunities from The New York Times will be accessible through The New York Times careers site. The New York Times will not ask job applicants for financial information or for payment, and will not refer you to a third party to do so. You should never send money to anyone who suggests they can provide employment with The New York Times.

If you see a fake or fraudulent job posting, or if you suspect you have received a fraudulent offer, you can report it to The New York Times at NYTapplicants@nytimes.com. You can also file a report with the Federal Trade Commission or your state attorney general.