Sr. Product Manager, Growth

XQ Institute is the nation’s leading organization dedicated to rethinking the high school experience so that every student graduates ready to succeed in life. We work in communities nationwide, with individual schools and entire school systems, to help them dream big about what high school could be, turn their innovative ideas into action, and create more rigorous and equitable schools.

The Opportunity

As the Senior Product Manager - Growth at XQ, you will own the end-to-end user journey across XQ’s main website and digital community. You’ll be responsible for driving acquisition, engagement, and activation by optimizing the website’s SEO, conversion rates (CRO), and user experience (UX) while also shaping onboarding, digital community engagement, and retention strategies.

This role requires a product growth-first mindset with a deep understanding of growth levers, A/B testing, and technical implementation. You will work cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, and data teams to define and execute a roadmap that drives meaningful user engagement and adoption of XQ’s products.

Key Responsibilities

1. Growth Strategy & Roadmap

• Define and execute the growth strategy for XQ’s website and digital community, ensuring it serves as both an acquisition and engagement platform.
• Own the website product roadmap, prioritizing key features and experiments that optimize conversion, retention, and engagement.
• Partner with engineering, design, and content teams to continuously improve user experience and conversion rates.

2. Website Optimization & Acquisition

• Improve SEO, site architecture, and content strategy to drive organic growth and inbound traffic.
• Develop and execute a conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy, leveraging A/B testing, user research, and behavioral data.
• Implement best practices for landing pages, forms, and CTAs to improve lead generation and user acquisition.

3. Onboarding & Activation

• Own onboarding flows and activation experiences to ensure users quickly realize value from XQ’s products.
• Develop personalized user journeys and lifecycle campaigns that increase engagement.
• Work closely with marketing automation and product teams to integrate retention strategies.

4. Digital Community & Engagement

• Build and foster a digital community around XQ’s mission and products.
• Experiment with engagement loops, user-generated content, and forums to create an interactive community experience.
• Implement gamification and rewards to drive deeper user participation.

5. Experimentation & Analytics

• Establish an A/B testing and experimentation framework to validate growth hypotheses.
• Utilize web analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, etc.) to track user behavior and uncover optimization opportunities.
• Regularly analyze activation, engagement, and retention metrics to drive data-informed decisions.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a growth-focused product management role, ideally in a digital-first or platform company.
• Proven track record in CRO, SEO, and growth marketing tactics to drive website and product adoption.
• Strong understanding of onboarding, activation, and community-building strategies.
• Experience working with A/B testing tools (e.g., Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize) and web analytics platforms.
• Familiarity with content management systems (CMS) such as Webflow or WordPress.
• Experience writing detailed product specs and working closely with engineers and designers.
• Strong project management skills, able to prioritize and execute in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional teams.
• Experience with growth loops, referral programs, or gamification strategies
• Background in behavioral psychology, habit formation, or community engagement frameworks.
• Experience working with PLG (product-led growth) models.

XQ Mindsets: Ours is a world defined by uncertainty, a society in flux, a state of unprecedented upheavals. While we don’t anticipate any quick fixes, we can anchor ourselves to what we see emerging. That’s why we have established a set of collective XQ Mindsets to ground us.

• 100% accountability: This doesn't mean you have 100% ownership. It doesn't mean you are responsible for every last thing that needs to be done. It means choosing to take responsibility for our collective success and impact.
• Maker mindset: We build stuff. We won’t always get it right the first time—in fact, we rarely will. But by quickly making and testing our work, we can learn what works and what doesn’t.
• We are the ones we’ve been waiting for: Critique is not enough. It is on us to create the solutions—no matter where we sit in the organization. We are a well-resourced organization filled with brilliant people. No one else is coming to our rescue.
• Opportunity knocks: We are ready, willing, and able to take on anything that is thrown our way. Pivots are a natural part of our approach, so let’s embrace them so that we can experience them joyfully.
• Stand on the shoulders of giants: We honor those who came before us, who aren’t seated at our tables, and build on others’ and our own earlier work with respect and reverence.

The salary range for this role is $150-200k/annually  XQ offers excellent organizational benefits.
This role will be based out of Oakland, CA office and onsite 5 days.

Please apply online. In your cover letter, please address why your skills, interests, and experience align with the requirements for this role.

XQ is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace. At XQ, promoting, celebrating, and supporting diversity is a core value. Individuals are considered without regard to race, gender, age, sexual orientation, sexual expression, religion, color, veteran status, disability, marital status, or ancestry.