Crain Communications is seeking an experienced Product Manager to help build the systems that deepen our understanding of our audiences and make our digital experiences more relevant and valuable to those audiences across their lifecycle.

This role focuses on the platforms, data systems, and intelligence capabilities that drive personalization, audience insights, content operations, and decision-making at Crain. You will work with teams across the business to build the foundational capabilities that collect, organize, enrich, and activate customer, content, and behavioral data to improve every product Crain brings to market.

At Crain, we use AI-enabled product development as part of how we work. We are looking for a product manager who is comfortable using modern AI tools to move faster and work smarter — from discovery and research to prototyping, experimentation, and delivery.

This role is a good fit for someone who enjoys touching all parts of a business. You can communicate with any stakeholder in a way that they can understand, whether business or technical. You should be comfortable moving between customer needs, data models, business goals, and technical details all day long.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of product intelligence systems that help Crain better understand and serve its audiences.
• Work with stakeholders across the organization to identify where better data, automation, or intelligence can improve customer experiences and business outcomes.
• Build internal capabilities that enable teams to understand customer behavior, audience interests, and content performance and do their jobs more effectively.
• Develop personalization and recommendation systems that make Crain experiences more relevant for customers.
• Partner with engineering and data teams to improve the quality, structure, governance, and accessibility of customer, content, and behavioral data.
• Help build the systems that collect, store, enrich, and activate behavioral data for analytics, personalization, audience intelligence, and business decision-making.
• Lead work on metadata, taxonomy, and content intelligence capabilities that improve discoverability, reporting, and personalization.
• Develop AI-powered tools and internal platforms that make teams more efficient.
• Partner with stakeholders to improve content management systems, publishing workflows, and editorial tooling that support content creation, enrichment, and distribution.
• Identify opportunities to automate workflows and reduce manual effort across content and operational processes.
• Use research, analytics, experimentation, and stakeholder feedback to inform product decisions and prioritize investments.
• Define success metrics and measure the impact of product initiatives.
• Manage products from discovery and planning through launch, optimization, and ongoing improvement.
• Communicate product vision, priorities, progress, and results to stakeholders across the organization.

Requirements

• 3+ years of product management experience, preferably with data products, publishing platform, analytics systems, and/or audience decisioning engines.
• Experience with customer data platforms, behavioral data systems, behavioral analytics, personalization systems, recommendation engines, or similar technologies.
• Comfort discussing technical concepts such as APIs, data pipelines, integrations, and platform architecture.

• Experience creating product requirements, workflows, wireframes, prototypes, or other product artifacts.
• History of partnering with engineering teams to deliver scalable products or platform capabilities.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to use data, research, and experimentation to make product decisions.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional initiatives and driving measurable business outcomes.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience working with multiple teams, priorities, and stakeholders.
• Experience using AI-powered tools to support discovery, research, requirements development, prototyping, or experimentation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with customer data platforms, analytics platforms, and content management systems such as Arc XP, experimentation platforms, or business intelligence tools.
• Familiarity with metadata, taxonomy, content intelligence, or personalization technologies.
• Interest in AI-enabled products, workflow automation, or recommendation systems.
• Background in media, publishing, SaaS, data platforms, or other digital product organizations.

Pay Transparency Disclosure:

The estimated salary range for this position is $90,000 to $130,000.

The final salary offering will take into accounta wide range of factors, including experience, accomplishments and location. The salary range provided should not be considered as a salary limit or cap. In addition to base salary, Crain also offers competitive benefits including retirement plan savings contributions and bonus opportunities based on individual and company performance.

This position is exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act and is not eligible for overtime pay.

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Environmental Demands

Where you work matters. The job posting will provide specific information on where and when your amazing work would be performed. Employee work location is determined by the needs of the specific team and may include on-site, hybrid or remote. Employee work location is subject to change.

• An in-office role would require the employee to come into the office most days with occasional flexibility to work remotely if tasks can be performed elsewhere and if the manager approves.
• A remote role would allow an employee to work from a home office that is in one of the states Crain does business in. We can only employ a remote / "work from home" employee if they reside in one of these states: AZ, CA, CO, IL, MD, MA, MI, MN, NV, NY, NC, OH, OR, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, and Washington, DC.
• A hybrid role would be a mix of in-office and remote work. There may be a specified schedule for coming into the office or it could be at the discretion of the employee with the managers approval, subject to change.
• Employees who live within a reasonable commute distance from a Crain office are expected to work on-site 3 days per week.

Many positions will also include work done in the field. Depending on the role, this may include conducting in-person interviews, attending work-related events, meeting with sources or clients. Specifics will be noted in the job posting but are subject to change as a role evolves.Employees may be exposed to adverse environmental conditions, specifically during field work. Other typical job functions are performed under conditions such as those found in general office work.

Travel to cover news stories/events, meetings with clients, and to our geographically separated offices may be required. It is the nature of many positions to experience non-standard working hours and be on-call when needed for responding to email, meeting with clients, attending work-related events, story development or breaking news. Most employees perform work Monday through Friday, although early-morning, evening or weekend shifts may be required.Work schedule and travel requirements are subject to change as a role and needs evolve over time.

Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of many Crain jobs and are subject to change.

Physical activities will include frequent in-person or virtual interactions. For most positions, it is essential to be able to remain at a desk/computer workstation for prolonged periods, perform computer-related tasks, and create/maintain documents within filing systems. Must have close visual acuity to perform an activity, such as preparing and analyzing reports and information, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal, or extensive reading. The typical physical requirements are light work 6exerting up to 25lbs of force occasionally and/or up to 10lbs of force frequently and may include climbing, pushing, standing, hearing, walking, reaching, grasping, kneeling, stooping, and repetitive motion. Some positions will have additional physical requirements, including exerting up to 50lbs of force to move and/or carry equipment, supplies, files, or other materials as the role requires.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential job functions and meet the environmental and physical demands of the role.