Principal Product Manager - Creator
Product
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 210k-250k / year + Equity
About Substack
Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. Substack empowers independent writers, artists, videographers, podcasters, and creators of all types to create, share, and make a living from their work through subscriptions, offering them creative freedom, ownership, and a direct connection to their audiences.
The Role
This role leads product for the full creator lifecycle on Substack: from helping independent creators confidently start, publish, grow, and monetize, to serving sophisticated enterprise publishers and partners building at scale on the platform.
You’ll work at the intersection of creator empathy, platform strategy, product analytics, partnerships, and execution. Success in this role means deeply understanding creator needs across the spectrum, identifying the behaviors and product systems that drive long-term success, and building scalable primitives that serve both new creators and large-scale publishers.
You’ll partner closely with Product, Engineering, Design, Data, and Partnerships teams to translate creator needs into durable product systems, including onboarding and activation flows, guidance and education, analytics and insights, site customization, publisher tooling, and platform capabilities that help creators build sustainable businesses on Substack.
What You’ll Do
Define the product strategy for creators across the full lifecycle, from first launch and activation to growth, monetization, customization, and enterprise-scale publishing
Build the systems, tooling, analytics, and platform primitives that help creators of every size succeed on Substack
Translate creator insights, enterprise partner needs, and company strategy into clear roadmaps, product requirements, and shipped work
Partner closely with Engineering, Design, Data, Partnerships, and Sponsorships teams to onboard creators, support major publishers, and turn bespoke needs into scalable product capabilities
Define the metrics, dashboards, experiments, and feedback loops that help the company understand creator progress and product impact
Own product storytelling and go-to-market strategy for creator-facing launches, clearly communicating what changed, why it matters, and how creators benefit
What We’re Looking For
4+ years of Product Management experience, ideally in creator, growth, platform, marketplace, media, or publisher-facing products
Strong creator empathy and a deep understanding of how creators build audiences, monetize, and evaluate platforms
Excellent product judgment, with the ability to balance simplicity, flexibility, and power across very different creator segments
Strong analytical skills, including experience defining metrics, using BI tools, running experiments, and applying cohort or growth analysis
Ability to translate bespoke partner or enterprise needs into reusable systems and platform primitives
Strong communication skills, including strategy writing, launch storytelling, and executive-level presentation
Comfort operating from high-level product strategy down to detailed UX, copy, and execution decisions
An ability to roll up your sleeves and do what needs to be done
Why This Role, Why Now
Creators are arriving at Substack with higher expectations, more sophisticated needs, and more alternatives than ever. The biggest leverage in improving creator outcomes comes from building systems that help creators make progress at every stage: getting started, finding traction, growing an audience, understanding what’s working, customizing their presence, and scaling into durable publishing businesses.
This role exists to turn creator intent into momentum across the full lifecycle, building the onboarding systems, analytics, publisher tooling, customization capabilities, and platform primitives that help creators of every size succeed on Substack.
Compensation
Substack's compensation package includes a market-competitive salary, equity for all full-time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation range for this role is $210,000–$250,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise.
Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you.
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