Head of Product, NYT Games

The mission of The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. That means independent journalism is at the heart of all we do as a company. It’s why we have a world-renowned newsroom that sends journalists to report on the ground from nearly 160 countries. It’s why we focus deeply on how our readers will experience our journalism, from print to audio to a world-class digital and app destination. And it’s why our business strategy centers on making journalism so good that it’s worth paying for. 

About the Role:

At NYT Games, we aim to be the premier destination for digital puzzle games. We are proud to publish human-made puzzles every day, including beloved games like Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, and the legendary New York Times Crossword. Our games are played by tens of millions of people each week.

The New York Times is seeking a Vice President and Head of Product for its world-renowned Games business, reporting to the SVP and Head of Games. In this role, you will help chart an ambitious vision for the future of NYT Games, bringing bold ideas for both incremental and transformational growth. You will lead a team of product managers working across a collection of cross-functional squads, aimed at driving growth in the north star metrics for the business.

Translating our vision into strategy, you will interrogate the why and the what, bringing together rigorous analysis and insights that clarify and prioritize the workstreams we choose. You will collaborate with other functions to deliver on the work, and pursue learnings and results that will feed back into our evolving strategies.

You will split your time between live operations (our existing live product), new games, and platforms, employing scalable processes that level up our capabilities across the Games mission. As a people leader, you will be responsible for recruiting and retaining a high-performing team, building a culture that is motivated, curious and inclusive, while contributing best-practices to the larger NYT Product function.

This is a hybrid role based in our New York City headquarters reporting to the Head of Games. You can typically expect to come into the office 2-3 days per week.

Responsibilities:

• In collaboration with other leaders, contribute to the long-term vision for NYT Games, including expansion into additional categories and markets, and translate that vision into a clear and compelling Product strategy with a growth mindset

• Meet or exceed ambitious success metrics for audience, subscription starts, engagement, churn, and revenue. Create clear measures of success that ladder up to our top-level business objectives

• Lead, recruit and retain a talented multi-level team of Product Managers, with diverse skill sets across growth, engagement and monetization. Help them embrace common processes and best practices across the full Games mission. Motivate them to develop bold new features and initiatives that drive growth and engagement, with positive user sentiment

• Collaborate to build robust scalable processes that help us identify, size and scope high-ROI opportunities for specific workstreams

• Uphold product quality and high standards in everything we do

• Create the conditions for fast and bold decision-making, informed by the market, audience insights and strong product intuition

• Champion and cultivate an inclusive, collaborative and ambitious culture that seeks out diverse viewpoints, encourages risk-taking and learning, and rewards great teamwork

• Contribute meaningfully to excellence of the Product function at the New York Times

• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world

 

Basic Qualifications:

• 10+ years of progressive product management experience on consumer digital products, with 7+ years in a leadership role

• Experience translating vision and ambition into prioritized roadmaps and backlogs, working with your Product Managers and cross-functional partners to break down work into shippable sprints

• Experience managing and coaching Product Management teams, across growth, engagement, and monetization, including management of managers

• Demonstrated experience balancing the long-term with getting features out the door

• Deep knowledge of experimentation principles, and a proven track record of meaningfu