Join one of Baltimore’s Best Places to Work!

About the Company:

The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to providing high-quality local journalism to the Baltimore metro area. Despite officially launching just over a year ago, The Banner already has one of the largest newsrooms and highest paid subscriber audiences of any non-profit news publications nationally.

The Baltimore Banner is reimagining the future of local news by building a vibrant, strong, trustworthy, and sustainable news organization. With a multi-platform news operation, we cover a wide range of topics, including local government, culture, and the arts. Our goal is to tell stories that reflect the community, foster connections among neighbors, hold government institutions accountable, and provide a comprehensive understanding of the world. Everything we do is rooted in truth, and we believe that our work can contribute to a more vibrant, informed, and united Baltimore, surrounding counties, and the state of Maryland.

About the role: 

The Product Manager will quickly interpret business and customer needs and turn them into compelling solutions. Reporting to the Vice President of Product, you’ll work with editorial, marketing, audience, and business development teams to identify, prioritize and execute on product opportunities for The Baltimore Banner. Under tight deadlines, effectively communicate abstract or creative concepts to engineering and design teams, as well as company stakeholders.

This role emphasizes the continual improvement of our products based on customer insights, ensuring we achieve the greatest possible business and audience impact with our limited resources.

Responsibilities

• Transform business requirements and engagement needs into high-functioning features and products.
• Partner with onshore and offshore engineering teams and vendors, managing sprints and agile scrum methodologies of product development as needed.
• Lead projects from conception to completion in accordance with deadlines and in alignment with business needs.
• Manage the rollout of new products, ensuring all stakeholders are aligned on priorities and timelines, and track their adoption and impact.
• Collaborate with cross-functional team members and stakeholders to refine requirements, resolve conflicts, and remove barriers to success for development teams.
• Conduct user research, analyze audience insights, and use findings to inform product development decisions.
• Monitor product performance and user feedback to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Serve as a thought leader in the organization on the use of user research to inform product decisions.
• Ask questions, take risks, and champion new ideas.

Skills and qualifications

• 2-4 years of Agile scrum experience in a product role for a consumer-facing product.
• A degree in a relevant academic discipline, i.e. science/engineering, visual or experiential design, journalism or domain expertise / equivalent professional experience.
• Experience as a product manager for mobile or web applications.
• Experience managing product backlogs and running Agile sprints with JIRA or equivalent tools.
• Ability to work with stakeholders to understand detailed requirements and determine a plan that will ensure they are met or exceeded.
• Strong interpersonal skills to communicate the creative vision, concepts, ideas, and solutions clearly, and effectively to stakeholders and internal teams.
• Exposure to news and editorial publishing is a plus – not required.
• Experience working with onshore and offshore engineering teams.
• Strongly data-driven product development approach, with a solid understanding of product analytics and user experience research.
• Familiarity with the product lifecycle and an ability to set criteria for how product health is evaluated.

The Venetoulis Institute embraces diversity and inclusion, and we are wholeheartedly committed to being proactive in inspiring a culture of inclusion across our organization. We are dedicated to establishing an organization that reflects the fundamental respect for different ways of working and living. We assure every employee the opportunity to reach their full potential.