We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
Location: flexible
Who We Are
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering America’s criminal justice system. In 2016 and 2021, The Marshall Project was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. We have also been honored with the Goldsmith Prize, multiple National Magazine Awards, and for General Excellence from the Online Journalism Awards. We are not advocates — we follow the facts and we do not pander to any audience — but we have a declared mission: to create and sustain a sense of urgency about the criminal justice system. We do not generally cover breaking news, although we curate the reporting of other news outlets in our morning newsletter. Our work includes investigative and explanatory projects and shorter pieces aimed at highlighting stories that other news organizations miss, underestimate or misunderstand. To assure our work reaches a larger audience, we partner with other media outlets; we have worked with more than 200 newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and online sites.
We are an equal opportunity employer, committed to diversity. We welcome qualified applicants of all races, ethnicities, physical abilities, genders and sexual orientations, including people who have been incarcerated or otherwise involved with the criminal justice system.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
The Marshall Project seeks a Product Manager to join our growing product team. This role will report to the Director of Product and work closely with designers, developers, and stakeholders across the organization to elevate our award-winning journalism, engage our audiences by improving our product offerings, and scale our internal tools and processes as we expand our operations.
We’re not looking for a perfect cookie-cutter candidate. We like complex people with unique backgrounds and a diverse set of strengths.
This is not an entry-level position, but we recognize many types of experiences that may serve you in this role. If you have a record of organizing, managing projects, coming up with bold ideas, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and advocating for audience needs, that is experience. If personal or familial circumstance has brought you in close contact with the criminal justice system, that is also experience. You do not need to have held a formal Product Manager position nor to think of yourself as a “Product” person.
Research shows that underrepresented applicants tend to downplay their qualifications. What's more important to us than a number are the experiences you've had and the expertise you've developed. We are looking for someone with practical and practiced skills; however, whether you have 5+ years, or only 2 years of non-traditional working experience, if you think you'd be a good fit, please apply.
Help oversee the product team's workload
Ensure that projects run smoothly and on deadline
Communicate with project stakeholders, gathering essential information or consensus
Develop ideas for new products and improvements to existing products
Implement strategies that spur the growth of our audience and organization
Test our designs with potential readers
Some examples of what you might work on:
An editor has pitched an idea for a new SMS product. Work with the audience team to take a step back and understand what we're trying to solve with the product and whether SMS is the right solution.
We're trying to increase small dollar donations to The Marshall Project. Work with the membership team to dig into our analytics to learn where most of our donors come from and where they tend to exit the donation flow, and suggest some improvements.
The Marshall Project is developing a feature story about how people in prison survived Covid-19. Together with colleagues in the newsroom, develop a timeline for editorial deliverables to make sure that the project can be designed, built, and shared with a partner newsroom on deadline.
A project updating our content management system has unearthed some rabbit holes and is taking longer than expected. Help the developer decide whether to decrease the scope of the project (and how) or help reduce their workload so that they have more time to focus on the problem.
The Marshall Project is building a network of local criminal justice news organizations. Talk to other stakeholders and come up with a list of features the website needs to have at launch and a roadmap for how to get those built.
The production team wants to increase adoption of the story editing tool across the newsroom. Talk to people around the newsroom who interact with the content management system to figure out where their pain points are and how to prioritize different tasks.
We’ve just launched a new story template. Write up an announcement to the newsroom about it, make sure the associated documentation gets updated, and organize a demonstration / training session for people who produce stories.
The Cleveland newsroom is developing a visual explainer about bail and bonds. Meet with a focus group of people in Cleveland who directly interact with the court system and show them a mockup in order to come up with recommendations for how the design can be improved.
You'll have latitude to shape your job and the kinds of projects you work on, depending on your interests and strengths. These are just some examples.
Job Requirements
Strong organizational skills and a track record of thoughtfully managing multiple projects simultaneously
The ability to communicate complex ideas and processes to those unfamiliar with a project, and to listen and gather feedback
A talent for thinking strategically and creatively to solve problems
An understanding of how qualitative research and data inform product and design decisions
A history of centering, advocating for, and trusting audience needs
An enjoyment for learning and teaching in equal measure, and collaborating with people with a wide range of talents
An understanding of what makes good stories tick
A willingness to both take feedback and advocate for your ideas
Dedication to understanding the underlying problem and questioning assumptions before jumping to solutions
A commitment to building an inclusive and thoughtful workplace
A reputation for being deeply curious, thoughtful, critical, and kind
We'd be particularly delighted to hire someone who has:
Deep knowledge of current web, design, and online journalism trends
Demonstrated digital news design experience, or abiding interest in news and storytelling
Interest in the criminal justice system, including personal or family experience of incarceration
The ability to conduct audience research and/or use the resulting data to inform decisions
Good writing skills
If you don’t have this exact combination of skills, that’s fine. Let us know what your strengths are, and tell us about other skills you have that we didn’t ask about that you think will help our newsroom’s efforts.
Compensation and benefits
This job is full-time, with a competitive salary and benefits including:
Annual Minimum Salary: $85,000
100% employer-paid medical, employer subsidized vision and dental insurance; matching traditional and Roth 401k (immediate vesting). Voluntary benefits include: Health and Dependent Care FSA, commuter benefits, pet insurance, short and long term disability insurance, employee and dependent life insurance, AFLAC accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness coverage, legal benefits, personal excess liability insurance, and employee discount marketplace. We also observe 17 days of paid time off each year (in addition to office closure between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2) and provide paid parental leave.
How to Apply
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.