Manager, Product Operations

Hearst Newspapers (HNP) is the operating group responsible for Hearst’s newspapers, local digital marketing services businesses, and directories. With more than 2,500 colleagues nationwide, HNP publishes 30 daily and 50 weekly newspapers reaching more than 45 million readers each month.

As local journalism and technology continue to evolve, Hearst Newspapers is investing in innovative ways to tell stories, grow audiences, and strengthen communities. From AI-powered newsroom tools to smarter operational systems, our teams are using technology to improve experiences for both readers and employees.

Our mission is to be the most trusted and accurate source of news and information in the communities we serve. We are committed to truthfulness, fairness, independence, and the belief that access to reliable information is essential to a healthy society.

The Hearst Newspapers Product Development team partners closely with newsrooms and business stakeholders to build digital products and experiences that serve the evolving needs of local communities and future generations of readers.

We operate at the intersection of journalism, technology, audience behavior, and business innovation — delivering trusted local reporting in ways that are more accessible, engaging, and relevant to how audiences consume information today.

Product Operations helps turn strategy into execution. The team improves how cross-functional teams plan, collaborate, execute, and adapt by building scalable systems, reducing operational friction, and thoughtfully integrating AI, automation, and emerging technologies into day-to-day workflows.

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

As Manager, Product Operations, you’ll help drive alignment, improve execution, and build the operational foundations that enable teams to deliver meaningful 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, editorial, advertising, finance, and marketing to help complex initiatives move forward with clarity and momentum.

You’ll also identify opportunities to leverage AI, automation, and emerging technologies to improve collaboration, execution, and operational efficiency.

This is an ideal opportunity for someone who enjoys solving operational challenges, leading cross-functional initiatives, and building scalable systems that help teams work smarter.

• Drive execution of high-priority, cross-functional initiatives aligned to 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 planning sessions, retrospectives, workshops, and operational reviews that drive alignment and accountability.

• 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.

• Identify opportunities where AI, automation, integrations, and existing tools can improve team effectiveness, reduce operational overhead, and accelerate execution.
• Continuously optimize how teams use existing platforms and workflows to maximize the value of the organization’s tool stack.
• Experiment with tools and operational patterns that improve planning, communication, reporting, documentation, and knowledge sharing.
• Develop scalable automations, templates, systems, and playbooks that help teams responsibly integrate AI into day-to-day product development.
• Serve as an advocate for evolving ways of working, helping teams adapt thoughtfully as technology and organizational needs change.

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

• Experience in Product Operations, Program Management, or Product Management within 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 experience using operational metrics and reporting to guide decisions.
• Experience leading organizational change management and adoption initiatives.
• Experience designing and implementing AI-assisted workflows, automation solutions, and operational systems that improve team effectiveness and reduce manual overhead.
• Ability to build systems that balance flexibility, usability, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
   

• Airtable — advanced experience required, including relational data structures, automations, interfaces, and workflow design.
• Jira
• Confluence
• Miro
• Figma
• Google Workspace & Microsoft 365
• Analytics & Reporting
• Looker
• Power BI
• Google Analytics
• Spreadsheet modeling, operational reporting, and data analysis

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 while enabling the future of local news and digital experiences.

In accordance with applicable law, Hearst is required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for this role if hired in New York, NY. The reasonable estimate is $100,000–$130,000. A final decision on the successful candidate’s starting salary will be based on a number of permissible, non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to skills and experience, training, certifications, and education.