Manager, Product Operations

The Mission of Product Operations

Product Operations exists to turn strategy into execution - helping teams across Hearst Newspapers work smarter, move faster, and deliver better outcomes for our readers, newsrooms, and business. We improve how teams collaborate, plan, execute, and adapt by building scalable systems, reducing operational friction, and thoughtfully integrating AI, automation, and emerging technologies into the way we work.

This is a highly adaptive, hands-on function. The strongest people on our team are builders and problem-solvers who are comfortable navigating ambiguity, rolling up their sleeves, and leaving teams, processes, and systems better than they found them.

About the Role

As Manager, Product Operations, you'll work across teams to drive alignment, improve execution, and create the operational foundations that help teams deliver better outcomes.

This role spans program leadership, workflow design, planning operations, tooling, team enablement, and organizational effectiveness. You'll partner closely with stakeholders across product, engineering, design, newsrooms, advertising, finance, and marketing to help complex initiatives move forward with clarity and momentum.

You'll also help identify opportunities to leverage AI, automation, and emerging technologies to improve collaboration, execution, and team effectiveness.

This is an ideal role for someone who enjoys solving operational challenges, leading cross-functional work, and building better ways for teams to operate at scale.

Key Responsibilities

Cross-Functional Program Leadership

• Drive execution of high-priority, cross-functional initiatives that align with organizational goals and measurable business outcomes.
• Coordinate across teams to reduce dependencies, improve alignment, and increase execution clarity.
• Support leadership in operationalizing strategic priorities across the product organization.
• Facilitate workshops, planning sessions, retrospectives, and operational reviews that drive alignment and accountability.

Operational Systems & Planning

• Own and evolve planning cadences including quarterly roadmapping, intake processes, prioritization frameworks, and operational governance.
• Build scalable workflows, operational systems, and documentation practices that improve consistency and visibility across teams.
• Improve visibility into team capacity, delivery health, risks, and outcomes through dashboards, reporting, and operational metrics.
• Help teams measure outcomes - not just output - across initiatives and workflows.

AI & Workflow Innovation

• Identify opportunities where AI, automation, integrations, and existing tools can meaningfully improve team effectiveness, reduce operational overhead, and accelerate execution. Also be ready to call out when an optimization idea is not worth pursuing.
• Continuously explore and optimize how teams use current platforms and workflows, helping the organization get more value from its existing tool stack.
• Experiment tools and operational patterns to improve planning, communication, reporting, documentation, and knowledge sharing - with a focus on practical adoption, usability, and measurable impact.
• Develop scalable systems, automations, templates, and playbooks that help teams integrate AI into day-to-day product development responsibly and effectively.
• Act as a continuous learner and internal advocate for evolving ways of working, helping teams adapt thoughtfully as technology and organizational needs change.

Team Enablement & Collaboration

• Serve as a strategic owner and administrator for collaboration and productivity platforms including Jira, Confluence, Airtable, Miro, and AI tooling ecosystems.
• Build automations, templates, and workflows that improve operational efficiency and team collaboration.
• Support onboarding, documentation quality, transparency, and knowledge sharing across teams.
• Foster a healthy, inclusive, and high-trust team environment grounded in continuous improvement.

About You

AI-Native and Highly Curious

You actively experiment with AI tools and workflows in your own work and are excited about helping organizations adapt to AI-enabled ways of operating. You think beyond "using AI tools" and toward redesigning systems and workflows around new capabilities.

Systems Thinker

You naturally connect people, processes, tools, and information into scalable operational systems. You see patterns, bottlenecks, and opportunities others miss.

Builder Mentality

You are proactive, resourceful, and comfortable building from ambiguity. You enjoy creating structure where none exists and iterating quickly.

Outcome-Oriented

You focus on measurable impact and understand how operational improvements influence team effectiveness, product outcomes, and business results.

Strong Facilitator & Communicator

You can align stakeholders across disciplines, facilitate productive discussions, and communicate clearly with both leadership and execution teams. People love working with you.

Operationally Excellent

You are highly organized, detail-oriented, and capable of managing multiple complex initiatives simultaneously without losing momentum.

Trusted Partner

You follow through on commitments, build strong relationships, surface challenges you're facing openly and honestly, and consistently improve the systems, documentation, and teams around you.

Change Management

You are skilled at driving the successful adoption of new systems, processes, and ways of working across cross-functional teams.

Skills & Experience

Core Competencies

• Product Operations, Program Management, or Product Management experience in a technology or digital product environment.
• Strong understanding of Agile product development practices and organizational operations.
• Experience designing scalable workflows, operational systems, and process improvements.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence without direct authority.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort using operational metrics and reporting to guide decisions.
• Experience driving organizational change management and adoption initiatives.
• Experience designing and implementing AI-assisted workflows, automation solutions, and operational systems that improve team effectiveness, reduce manual overhead, and drive measurable business value.
• The ideal candidate builds systems that are powerful without being unnecessarily complex, balancing flexibility, usability, and long-term maintainability.

Workflow, Collaboration & Operational Systems

• Airtable - Advanced experience required, including designing scalable workflows, relational data structures, automations, and interfaces that support cross-functional operations.
• Jira
• Confluence
• Miro
• Figma
• Google Workspace & Microsoft 365

Analytics & Operational Reporting

• Looker
• Power BI
• Google Analytics
• Spreadsheet modeling, operational reporting, and data analysis

AI, Automation & Emerging Tools

Experience using AI and automation tools to improve workflows, accelerate execution, and simplify operational processes.

Examples include

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Gemini
• Cursor
• Zapier
• Make
• Power Automate
• Lovable

Why This Role Matters

Hearst Newspapers is evolving how local journalism and digital product development work together in a rapidly changing media and technology landscape. Product Operations plays a critical role in helping the organization adapt - improving how teams collaborate, execute, and scale across a complex cross-functional environment.

Additional Information

• Sponsorship: This position does not provide immigration sponsorship. Applicants must have the right to work in the U.S. without immigration sponsorship.
• Accommodations: We are committed to an accessible application process. If you need an accommodation to apply, please contact. This email address is for accommodation requests only.

Benefits

We support our employees through personal and professional development and promote physical, financial and emotional wellbeing for employees and their families. Our benefits include:

• Physical Wellbeing: Medical, dental and vision coverage to help keep you and your family healthy.
• Invest in the Future: Competitive retirement plan with a matching program in most markets.
• Generous Paid Time Off: Ample time off, including holidays and vacation.
• Paid Parental Leave: Paid leave to support growing families and new parents.
• Monthly Child & Dependent Care Reimbursement: Financial support for the care of your loved ones.
• Emotional Wellbeing: Mental wellness benefits to support your emotional wellbeing.
• LGBTQ+ & Inclusive Health Services: Inclusive healthcare designed for individual needs.
• Fertility Coverage & Menopause Support: Support throughout different stages of your health and family journey.
• Pet Wellness Reimbursement & Rover Credits: Support to help keep your pets happy and healthy.
• And more: Learn more about additional benefits and details here.

Compensation

The base salary range below is the Company's good-faith estimate for this position in the posted work location at the time of posting. Final starting salary will be based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills, experience, training, certifications, education, location and market considerations.

Base Salary Range

$100,000 - $130,000 USD