Lead Product Manager, Recommendations

About Scribd, Inc.

Scribd, Inc. is dedicated to advancing human understanding through its diverse portfolio of products, including Scribd®, Slideshare®, Everand™, and Fable. These platforms collectively serve billions globally, enabling users to move beyond mere access to insightful application and expertise.

Company Culture

Scribd fosters a culture centered on authenticity and boldness, encouraging debate and commitment while adapting to changes. Employees are empowered to prioritize customers and act decisively. The Scribd Flex program balances individual flexibility with crucial in-person collaboration, requiring occasional office attendance for all staff irrespective of location.

Core Values

We seek team members demonstrating GRIT—passion and perseverance focused on long-term goals. This philosophy encompasses setting Goals, delivering Results, providing Innovative contributions, and enhancing the Team through collaboration and positive attitude.

Role Overview

The Lead Product Manager for Recommendations will oversee the strategy and execution of Scribd’s content recommendation systems that serve 200 million monthly users and a catalog of 300 million documents. This role involves uniting machine learning with product management to ensure highly personalized and timely content discovery.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and steward a comprehensive multi-year roadmap for recommendation features, covering candidate generation, ranking, and presentation to guide users efficiently to desired content.
• Collaborate closely with Machine Learning Engineering and Applied Research teams to translate cutting-edge advances in retrieval, ranking algorithms, content embeddings, and real-time behavioral data into production-ready personalization systems.
• Identify and track critical success metrics such as engagement rates, click-through, content completion, and subscriber conversion and retention.
• Balance immediate improvements in relevance and revenue generation with long-term platform extensibility aligned to a three-year AI strategic plan.
• Incorporate customer insights and data from experiments, analytics, and user feedback to prioritize features and guide product design.
• Effectively communicate with diverse teams and executive stakeholders to align on objectives, timelines, deliverables, and impact.

Required Qualifications

• At least 8 years of product management experience, including 4+ years focused on recommendation or search products in high-traffic consumer settings.
• Proven track record of launching machine learning-powered features that significantly influence key metrics like engagement, conversion, or revenue at scale.
• Strong understanding of retrieval and ranking methodologies, embeddings, feature stores, combined with capability to analyze end-to-end user journeys across segments.
• Experience driving strategic vision in ambiguous environments, aligning cross-functional teams, and delivering incremental wins.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including preparation of product briefs and delivering data-driven presentations to senior leadership.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience.

Preferred Skills

• Experience using AI-enhanced productivity and analytical tools such as large language model (LLM) powered workflows, SQL copilots, and data exploration platforms to accelerate iteration and validate assumptions independently.
• Background designing discovery experiences augmented by LLMs and Generative AI to offer personalized and task-specific value beyond standard recommendations.
• Familiarity with modern machine learning operations (ML ops) tooling and practices.

Compensation

Base salary is only one component of total compensation and varies by location, role, and experience. In Canada (including Vancouver), expected salary ranges from 179000 to 228000 CAD annually. Competitive equity packages and comprehensive benefits supplement the salary.

Location Requirements

Candidates must reside in or near approved metropolitan areas that Scribd can employ for this position, including Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Benefits

• Flexible work model (Scribd Flex)
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance
• Mental health and disability support
• Generous paid leave including vacation, sick leave, holidays, winter break, volunteer time, and sabbaticals
• Paid parental leave and family care benefits
• Retirement matching and employee equity options
• Learning and professional development programs
• Wellness and home office expense stipends
• Free access to Scribd’s suite of products
• Enterprise-grade AI tool access

Diversity & Accessibility

Scribd is an equal opportunity employer, welcoming candidates regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, or other legally protected characteristics. The hiring process is designed to be accessible, with reasonable accommodations available upon request.