Quizlet

Principal Product Manager

Quizlet • $150K — $180K *
Consumer Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of product management experience, or equivalent track record in consumer product ownership
  • Deep B2C product experience with strong judgment about consumer motivation and engagement
  • Proven ability to discover product direction beyond simply delivering established features
  • Strong skills in defining MVP, testing assumptions, and distinguishing promising signals from noise
  • Ability to combine customer insights, analysis, and market context to make clear decisions
  • Comfort with making decisions despite incomplete information and adjusting based on evidence
  • Excellent communication skills for interacting with senior leaders in a dynamic environment

Responsibilities

  • Own product strategy and execution from definition to product-market fit
  • Drive the full product cycle from concept refinement to rapid iteration
  • Collaborate closely with design and engineering to deliver high-quality products
  • Engage directly with users to receive feedback and validate product direction
  • Define success metrics focused on user activation, engagement, and long-term value
  • Communicate product vision and uncertainties clearly to the team
  • Develop go-to-market strategies leveraging Quizlet's existing reach
  • Establish effective, lightweight product practices for fast decision-making

Benefits

  • 20 vacation days that are encouraged to be taken
  • Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance coverage
  • Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
  • Access to professional growth resources like LinkedIn Learning
  • Paid Family Leave and various health benefit plans
  • 40 hours of annual paid time off for volunteering
  • Hybrid work model with two mandatory in-office days per week
Full Job Description
About the Team

We're building a brand-new education consumer product inside Quizlet with the focus and speed of a startup-and the opportunity to reach millions of existing Quizlet users. We've deliberately created a dedicated team of roughly 15 people, a new technology stack, and a flat operating model so we can make decisions quickly, ship often, and learn directly from users.

This is not an extension of an existing roadmap. We're building from first principles and taking a new product from early conviction through launch and product-market fit. Everyone on the team reports to the product's GM, works close to the details, and shares accountability for what reaches users. It's a rare combination: a true 01 mandate with the reach, insight, and resources of Quizlet behind it.

About the Role

As Principal Product Manager, you'll be the hands-on product leader for this new venture. Working directly with the GM and alongside engineering, design, research, data, and go-to-market partners, you'll own the path from customer insight to product strategy, MVP, launch, and iteration.

This is a builder role, not a roadmap-management role. You'll help determine what the product should be, build on our initial customer and use-case wedge, and turn incomplete signals into clear product bets. You'll get real product into users' hands quickly, define what success looks like, and own the learning loop that takes us from an early idea to something people return to and value.

The strongest candidates will have built 01 consumer products before and will be at their best when the playbook does not yet exist. Education experience is welcome, but it is not required-we already have deep education and learning expertise across Quizlet. What matters most is your ability to discover, launch, and grow products that consumers choose to use.

In this role, you will
  • Own product strategy and execution for a new consumer product, from problem definition and early validation through launch, adoption, and product-market fit.
  • Drive a full 01 product cycle: concept refinement, prototyping, alpha to MVP launch, measurement, and rapid iteration.
  • Work side by side with design and engineering to ship high-quality experiences quickly, making sharp decisions about scope, sequencing, quality, and technical investment.
  • Stay close to users through interviews, prototype testing, behavioral data, experiments, and live product feedback-and ensure what we learn changes what we build.
  • Define the product's success metrics and instrumentation, with particular focus on activation, engagement, retention, and evidence of durable consumer value.
  • Create clarity without pretending certainty: communicate what we believe, what we have learned, what remains unknown, and which decision the team needs to make next.
  • Develop the launch and distribution strategy with growth, marketing, and other Quizlet teams, using Quizlet's reach without assuming distribution alone will create product-market fit.
  • Establish lightweight product practices that help the team make fast, rigorous decisions without adding unnecessary process.
  • Help build the culture of the new team: ambitious, user-obsessed, analytically rigorous, low-ego, and biased toward putting real products in users' hands.


What you bring to the table
  • 8+ years of product management experience, or an equivalent track record, including direct ownership of at least one consumer product taken from an ambiguous problem or blank page through launch and measurable adoption.
  • Deep B2C product experience and strong judgment about consumer motivation, onboarding, activation, engagement, retention, and habit formation.
  • Evidence that you have discovered product direction-not only delivered features against an established roadmap.
  • A strong 01 toolkit: you know how to find a wedge, test the riskiest assumptions, define an MVP, and distinguish promising early signals from noise.
  • The ability to combine qualitative customer insight, quantitative analysis, market context, and experimentation to make clear decisions.
  • Comfort making consequential decisions with incomplete information-and the judgment to narrow, change, or kill an idea when the evidence demands it.
  • Fluency operating at both altitudes: articulating a differentiated product vision and working through the detailed tradeoffs required to ship it.
  • A track record of building trusted, effective relationships with engineering, design, research, data, marketing, and business partners.
  • Excellent communication skills and comfort working directly with a GM and senior leaders in a fast-changing environment.
  • Low ego, high ownership, and genuine enthusiasm for a small team where everyone builds and titles matter less than outcomes.


Bonus points if you have
  • Taken a consumer product beyond launch into strong retention, product-market fit, and sustained growth.
  • Experience building freemium, subscription, social, content, or other high-engagement consumer products.
  • Built a new product inside a larger company while protecting the focus, urgency, and accountability of a startup team.
  • Founder, early-stage startup, or general-management experience that taught you to think beyond the traditional boundaries of product management.
  • Experience building for students, Gen Z, or another high-frequency consumer audience.
  • Experience in education, learning science, or edtech-or a genuine curiosity about how people learn.
  • Ambition to help build not only a successful product, but the team and operating model behind a major new business for Quizlet.


Work Location

We're happy to share that this is a hybrid position in our San Francisco office. To support collaboration, we ask employees to be in the office at least two days a week: Wednesday and Thursday.

Compensation, Benefits & Perks
  • Collaborate with your manager and team to create a healthy work-life balance
  • 20 vacation days that we expect you to take!
  • Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, Dental, VSP Choice)
  • Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
  • Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
  • Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
  • 40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice


We strive to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome!

We work to create a holistic interview process, where both Quizlet and candidates have an opportunity to view what it would be like to work together, in exploring a mutually beneficial partnership. We provide a transparent setting that gives a comprehensive view of who we are!

About Quizlet

Quizlet is an online learning platform that provides study tools for students. The company was founded in 2005 by Andrew Sutherland and is based in San Francisco, California. Quizlet's platform allows users to create and share study materials, such as flashcards and quizzes, and offers a variety of study modes to help users learn and retain information. The company has over 50 million active users and has raised over $60 million in funding.
Learn more about Quizlet
Size
200 employees
Industry
Founded
2007

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