Director, Product Discovery (Scribd.com)

Director, Product Discovery (Scribd.com)

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About The Company

At Scribd (pronounced “scribbed”), our mission is to spark human curiosity. Join our team as we create a world of stories and knowledge, democratize the exchange of ideas and information, and empower collective expertise through our four products : Everand, Scribd, Slideshare, and Fable.

We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.

When it comes to workplace structure, we believe in balancing individual flexibility and community connections. It’s through our flexible work benefit, Scribd Flex, that employees – in partnership with their manager – can choose the daily work‑style that best suits their individual needs. A key tenet of Scribd Flex is our prioritization of intentional in‑person moments to build collaboration, culture, and connection. For this reason, occasional in‑person attendance is required for all Scribd employees, regardless of their location.

So what are we looking for in new team members? We hire for “GRIT”. The textbook definition of GRIT is demonstrating the intersection of passion and perseverance towards long‑term goals. At Scribd, we are inspired by the potential that this can unlock, and ask each of our employees to pursue a GRIT‑ty approach to their work. In a tactical sense, GRIT is also a handy acronym that outlines the standards we hold ourselves and each other to. Here’s what that means for you : we’re looking for someone who showcases the ability to set and achieve

G oals, achieve

R esults within their job responsibilities, contribute

I nnovative ideas and solutions, and positively influence the broader

T eam through collaboration and attitude.

About The Team And Role

We are building a new Discovery product organization at Scribd.com, and this role is the founding Director of Product for that group. You will lead the strategy and execution across our recommendations, search, ranking, and discovery experiences.

Our corpus spans hundreds of millions of documents, and our goal is not just to help people find files, but to help hundreds of millions of applied learners discover the knowledge inside those documents. You will define how we evolve from traditional search and recs into a real‑time, LLM‑augmented discovery system that understands user intent, reasons across our corpus, and returns trustworthy, explainable results.

This is both a strategic and operational leadership role. You will manage and mentor PM leaders, partner with Engineering, Machine Learning, Applied Research, Design, Content, and Data Science, and establish the discovery roadmap that will shape Scribd.com’s long‑term engagement, retention, and subscription growth.

About You

You are a product leader who lives at the intersection of user problems, ML systems, and business outcomes. You have built or led teams that own discovery, personalization, or search at meaningful scale, and you are comfortable shaping long‑term vision while shipping iterative value along the way. You can talk embeddings and LLM architectures with engineers, and you can just as easily frame a strategy for executives in terms of learner outcomes and subscription value. You are excited by the challenge of turning a massive UGC corpus into a trusted, intelligent learning companion.

You Will

Set the multi‑year Discovery strategy.

Define and drive the long‑term vision for Scribd’s discovery ecosystem, including recommendations, search, ranking, and semantic content understanding.

Articulate how we move from document‑level retrieval to knowledge‑level discovery using foundational models and LLMs.

Align this vision with company priorities in engagement, retention, and subscription growth, balancing foundational ML investments with high‑impact product improvements.

Lead and Grow a World‑Class Product Organization

Serve as the founding product leader for the Discovery group, managing, mentoring, and inspiring a team of product managers across discovery surfaces and platforms.

Recruit and develop top PM talent, set a high bar for product craft, and build a culture that combines deep technical curiosity with strong user empathy.

Establish durable cross‑functional operating rhythms with Engineering, ML, Data Science, Design, Content, and Trust & Safety.

Build Next‑Generation Discovery Systems Using LLMs and ML

Oversee the evolution of Scribd’s personalization and retrieval stack, combining semantic embeddings, behavioral signals, hybrid retrieval, and LLM‑powered reasoning.

Partner with ML Engineering and Applied Research to design and ship real‑time systems for retrieval, ranking, and evaluation that operate at global scale and under tight latency budgets.

Lead the development of generative recommendation experiences that help users understand why content is relevant and what they might learn from it.

Drive real‑time intent modeling and personalization that react to user behavior within and across sessions.

Create AI‑Forward Discovery Experiences For Learners

Own end‑to‑end discovery journeys, from homepage and feeds to search results and document detail pages, ensuring users confidently find the right content quickly.

Introduce AI overviews and conversational, question‑aware interfaces that help users ask richer questions and receive synthesized, sourced answers grounded in our corpus.

Champion a Rigorous Experimentation and Metrics Culture

Define the metrics that matter for long‑term subscription value, discovery satisfaction, and content health across Scribd.com.

Lead a robust experimentation agenda with clear hypotheses, guardrails, and data‑driven decision making across discovery surfaces.

Ensure that LLM and ML driven features ship with clear hypotheses, guardrails, and monitoring, including trust, safety, and quality considerations.

Influence Through Clear, Compelling Communication

Develop executive‑level narratives that articulate strategy, roadmap, progress, and impact for the Discovery organization.

Build trusted, collaborative partnerships across global teams, and guide multi‑quarter and multi‑year roadmaps across time zones and functional groups.

Communicate trade‑offs and decisions clearly to partners at every level, from engineers and researchers to executive leadership.

You Have

10+ years of product management experience, including 5+ years managing PM teams or leading multi‑disciplinary product groups.

Demonstrated success owning discovery, personalization, search, or ranking experiences at scale in a consumer technology environment.

Deep technical fluency in modern ML and AI systems, including retrieval and ranking, semantic embeddings, LLMs, retrieval‑augmented generation, feature stores, model evaluation, and real‑time personalization.

A strong track record of translating user needs, data insights, and competitive trends into breakthrough discovery features, ideally including ML or LLM‑powered experiences.

Proven ability to lead through ambiguity, make strategic trade‑offs, and balance long‑term platform investments with near‑term business results.

Exceptional written, visual, and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to executives and cross‑functional partners.

Experience running large‑scale A / B tests, user research, and multi‑surface experimentation programs.

Bachelor’s degree in a technical or related field (Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, HCI) or equivalent experience.

Ideally, You Have

Experience building or leading LLM‑powered products, such as AI search, conversational assistants, generative recommendations, or AI overviews.

Background in information retrieval, recommender systems, or NLP, either in industry or academic research.

Experience with large UGC ecosystems, marketplaces, or platforms where content quality and trust are central to discovery.

Experience standing up or scaling a new product group or charter, including hiring and mentoring senior PMs.

Compensation & Benefits

At Scribd, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package and is determined within a range. The salary range for this level in the United States varies by location. In California, the range is $173,000 – $275,000. Outside California, it is $142,500 – $266,250. In Canada, the range is CAD 181,000 – 249,250. In addition, this position is eligible for competitive equity ownership and a comprehensive benefits package.

Working at Scribd, Inc.

Are you currently based in a location where Scribd is able to employ you?

Employees must have their primary residence in or near one of the following cities :

United States – Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Houston, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington D.C.

Canada – Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver

Mexico – Mexico City.

Benefits, Perks, and Well‑being at Scribd

Healthcare Insurance Coverage (Medical / Dental / Vision) : 100% paid for employees

12 weeks paid parental leave

Short‑term and long‑term disability plans

401(k) / RSP matching

Onboarding stipend for home‑office peripherals + accessories

Learning & Development allowance

Quarterly stipend for wellness, Wi‑Fi, etc.

Mental health support & resources

Free subscription to Scribd products

Referral bonuses

Book benefit

Sabbaticals

Company‑wide events

Team engagement budgets

Vacation & personal days

Paid holidays (including winter break)

Flexible sick time

Volunteer day

Company‑wide employee resource groups and programs that foster an inclusive and diverse workplace

Access to AI tools : free access to best‑in‑class AI tools to boost productivity, streamline workflows, and accelerate innovation

Equal Employment Opportunity

We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing accommodations@scribd.com. Scribd is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, and believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas. Come join us in building something meaningful.

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