Technical Product Manager

Location: Hybrid - San Francisco

About the role

KQED is redefining public media to be more inclusive, participatory, and community-powered. In a time when misinformation and distrust in media are growing, we are committed to being the trusted journalistic source serving the needs of the Bay Area. Within this scope, our Digital Product Team develops experiences to serve the needs of our diverse audiences. This includes partnering with editorial teams on essential content, developing new content formats, and building the infrastructure to power personalized experiences.

To support these efforts, our team is looking for a Technical Product Manager to sit at the intersection of business strategy and deep engineering execution. This role will be responsible for prioritization and translating complex requirements into actionable technical roadmaps. Working closely with engineering and business stakeholders, you will ensure our systems are architecturally scalable, technically feasible, and directly aligned with system needs and business goals.

We are a media organization and look for talent who can bring a strong knowledge of functional design to our digital properties and our community. KQED envisions a public media organization with a culture that centers on human dignity, equity, and belonging. This will enable us to better serve and reflect the Bay Area through diverse and inclusive storytelling. We value the contributions of marginalized people in society — including Black, Indigenous, and all people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people — and believe that these communities must be centered in the work we do.

Responsibilities

• Establish prioritization frameworks to balance feature development, infrastructure upgrades, and technical debt reduction.
• Partner with engineering teams to evaluate system constraints, review API designs, and translate complex technical requirements into stories and sprint backlogs.
• Define key product metrics and analyze systems to evaluate system performance.
• Lead grooming, backlog refinement, and sprint planning in an Agile environment, ensuring clear acceptance criteria and seamless alignment across cross-functional teams.

Requirements

• Basic understanding of microservices, cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure), databases (SQL vs. NoSQL), API design (REST, GraphQL), and Content Management System (CMS) architecture (headless vs. traditional CMS platforms).
• Ability to read code, review API documentation, and participate in technical trade-off discussions without getting lost.
• Targeted technical knowledge—such as machine learning/AI models, data pipelines, infrastructure, or developer tools (SDKs).
• Familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript (or other OOP language) preferred.
• Agile methodologies and scrum management experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related STEM field.
• Software Engineer, Solutions Architect, or Systems Architect experience preferred.
• At least 5 years working on technical products.

About the Product Team

We run and develop multiple properties (including kqed.org and our mobile apps) and are always building new products on a modern stack with some legacy systems. Some of the technologies that we use are (but are not limited to):

• Node / React / Webpack / Babel / Yarn
• Kubernetes / Spinnaker / Docker
• Elasticsearch / Redis / MongoDB / MySQL
• JavaScript / Java / Spring Boot / REST APIs

Benefits

Whether you’re single, married, have children, are in a domestic partnership, or anything in between, we have you covered. Employees at KQED enjoy:

• A family-friendly workplace offering paid time off, paid holidays, and paid parental leave.
• Family medical leave benefits.
• Comprehensive health, vision, and dental benefits.
• Commuter benefits.
• A 403(b) retirement plan.
• Employee Resource Groups and wellness programs.
• Free KQED membership.
• Training to support personal and professional development.

Pay

$122,808 - $153,510

Schedule

Hybrid between KQED's newly renovated headquarters and remote work.