Director of Product

The Position

The Director of Product leads the strategy, development, and day-to-day management of Fort Worth Report’s digital products: its website, email management platform, regional-expansion products outside of editorial, obituary scraper, events calendar, and future products supporting Vision 2030.

This leadership role ensures products are reliable, easy to use, and responsive to evolving audience needs. The director works with the leadership team on product-growth strategy supporting business and journalism goals, and partners with the Director of Audience, managing editor, publisher/CEO, and general manager/CRO. A positive, can-do, solution-focused approach for internal and external customers is essential.

Key Responsibilities

Product

• Improve and manage the website, email newsletters, zone publications outside editorial, obituary scraper, mobile app, and events calendar; coordinate contract developers and designers as needed.
• Manage new-product launches supporting Vision 2030 and own the product roadmap, prioritizing enhancements from audience needs, business goals, and staff feedback.
• Serve as the primary contact for Newspack and other technology vendors; evaluate features, troubleshoot issues, and manage vendor contracts and budgets including WordPress, BlueLena, Mediagraph, Documenters, and AP Newsroom.
• Manage bug tracking and enhancement requests; develop product analytics dashboards and report performance and progress to leadership.
• Oversee website performance, accessibility, mobile experience, and technical SEO with contractors and the audience team.
• Evaluate tools and platforms including texting, video, and audio to advance the product strategy.

Audience

• Analyze and help meet current and future audience information needs across the website, newsletters, social media, mobile app, and emerging platforms including Reddit, Nextdoor, and SMS.
• Drive readership growth, expand outreach to new audiences, and optimize engagement; work with membership leadership to move readers toward loyal membership.
• Partner with newsroom leadership and the newsletter editor on newsletter product design and editorial workflows; use paid acquisition including social and Google ads. Google News Showcase experience is a plus.
• Use surveys and other feedback to inform audience and content strategy; use Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Parse.ly, and related data to make metric-driven recommendations with the managing editor.
• Report against weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals; review audience and subscriber data in news meetings, provide monthly audience reports to the board and staff, and lead social, SEO, Search Console, and newsroom SEO-training work.

Qualifications and Qualities

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience and training; at least five years in digital product management or a related field. Newsroom familiarity is a plus.
• Commitment to the role of public-service journalism in democracy; proven people-management and cross-team collaboration skills.
• Understanding of SCRUM, Agile, or comparable product-management frameworks; experience with Asana and AI tools such as Claude Code or ChatGPT is a plus.
• Experience building business plans and KPI dashboards for digital products, with successful results; nonprofit experience is helpful.
• Experience with CMS and email providers, including WordPress; Newspack and ActiveCampaign familiarity is a plus.
• Understanding of UX/UI, accessibility, web performance, software-vendor and technical-team collaboration, and digital analytics including Google Analytics and Parse.ly.
• Strong spreadsheet, writing, presentation, design, and virtual-meeting tool skills; commitment to diversity and inclusion. Spanish proficiency is a plus.
• Excellent organization, project management, communication, multitasking, and proactive problem-solving skills.

Position and Benefits

This is a full-time, exempt position. Travel and some nights and weekends are required. Fort Worth Report offers competitive pay; medical, dental, and vision insurance; generous holiday, sick, and vacation leave; and flexible work hours.

How to Apply

Fort Worth Report welcomes candidates who may not check every box and is an equal-opportunity employer. People of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, and differently abled people are strongly encouraged to apply. Submit a cover letter and resume to mike@fortworthreport.org with “Director of Product” in the email subject line.