What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Product, Marketplace position at Propel, Inc?
About Us
Propel is on a mission to empower low-income Americans by simplifying access to government benefits with modern technology. We're a passionate team of 100 Propellers - all working to help our users get through the month, every month.
The Role
The Propel Marketplace connects our ~10M users to products, services, and exclusive offers from leading brands across grocery, healthcare, and financial services. Some of our major retailer partners include Amazon, Verizon, United Healthcare, and Kroger. It has grown into a powerful, industry-leading performance tool for our partners and a critical revenue driver for Propel. Our current model is our advertising partners pay on a cost per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA) model for lead generation.
We're looking for a visionary, data-driven Director of Product Management - Marketplace with proven expertise in scaling a digital marketplace to drive engagement, revenue, and long-term growth. You'll work closely with our GM of Marketplace and Director of Marketplace Growth and Merchandising to shape the strategy, make large bets, and prioritize building the right features to attract new users and customers while minimizing churn. This is both an individual contributor role and a managerial role.
As a strategic thinker and empathetic leader, you'll build and mentor a high-performing team of PMs over time, set a clear vision, and align cross-functional partners across engineering, design, marketing, and operations. You'll blend user empathy and commercial savvy to design features that hit revenue targets, craft compelling narratives for execs and partners, and turn data into actionable insights. If you're passionate about empowering low-income communities and thrive at the intersection of strategy, execution, and impact, we'd love to meet you.
Core Competencies
Propel is a technology company that's strengthening the social safety net for people who receive government benefits. Over 5 million Americans trust the free, modern Propel app to manage their government benefits, save money, and get updates when their benefits change. We've also partnered with renowned institutions and organizations like Vote.org, GoFundMe, and GiveDirectly.
Propel is a for-profit, venture-backed company that holds its social mission at its core. We're proud to be supported by a blend of nonprofits, impact investors, and world-class investors including the Robin Hood Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Financial Health Network, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, Serena Williams, and Nas.
Learn more about our impact from the press
Propel is on a mission to empower low-income Americans by simplifying access to government benefits with modern technology. We're a passionate team of 100 Propellers - all working to help our users get through the month, every month.
The Role
The Propel Marketplace connects our ~10M users to products, services, and exclusive offers from leading brands across grocery, healthcare, and financial services. Some of our major retailer partners include Amazon, Verizon, United Healthcare, and Kroger. It has grown into a powerful, industry-leading performance tool for our partners and a critical revenue driver for Propel. Our current model is our advertising partners pay on a cost per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA) model for lead generation.
We're looking for a visionary, data-driven Director of Product Management - Marketplace with proven expertise in scaling a digital marketplace to drive engagement, revenue, and long-term growth. You'll work closely with our GM of Marketplace and Director of Marketplace Growth and Merchandising to shape the strategy, make large bets, and prioritize building the right features to attract new users and customers while minimizing churn. This is both an individual contributor role and a managerial role.
As a strategic thinker and empathetic leader, you'll build and mentor a high-performing team of PMs over time, set a clear vision, and align cross-functional partners across engineering, design, marketing, and operations. You'll blend user empathy and commercial savvy to design features that hit revenue targets, craft compelling narratives for execs and partners, and turn data into actionable insights. If you're passionate about empowering low-income communities and thrive at the intersection of strategy, execution, and impact, we'd love to meet you.
Core Competencies
- Strategic Vision & Execution: Crafts a data-backed roadmap balancing quick engagement wins with bold, long-term bets on new verticals. Defines clear hypotheses, runs A/B tests, and iterates rapidly to drive measurable impact.
- Leadership & Team Building: Builds and mentors a high-performing team of PMs, fostering ownership, psychological safety, and relentless customer focus.
- User & Client Empathy: Deeply understands EBT users' needs and motivations, turning insights into product priorities. Brings a sharp commercial mindset to align client objectives with Propel's business goals and revenue drivers.
- Cross-Functional & Technical Collaboration: Aligns Engineering, Design, Marketing, and Operations on clear goals and metrics. Brings technical fluency in personalization, search, and checkout to ensure scalable, high-quality experiences.
- Partnership & Influence: Develops merchant and white-label partnerships, driving win-win integrations. Crafts clear, compelling narratives for executives, board members, and partners to inspire alignment and action.
- Execution Rigor & Experimentation: Breaks complex initiatives into actionable milestones with high standards for quality and timeliness. Embeds a continuous learning mindset into product rituals and pivots quickly based on results.
- Set an ambitious product vision for Marketplace - determining long-term strategy and value props for both users and partners that leverages assets unique to Propel
- Own the customer journey for Marketplace—from discovery and search to offer details, checkout flows and post-purchase engagement.
- Define and drive the roadmap for the core platform and across all verticals (grocery, telecom, insurance, financial services, jobs), from ideation through launch, iteration and go-to-market.
- Lead and mentor a team of Product Managers (70% of your time), fostering a culture of experimentation, customer empathy, and end-to-end ownership.
- Set success metrics (engagement, conversion, GMV, LTV) and partner with Data to run A/B tests, measure impact and iterate rapidly.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Engineering, Design, Data, Marketing, Business Development and Customer Success to remove blockers and ship high-quality experiences.
- Build and strengthen external partnerships—participate in negotiations with merchants, white-label providers and tech platforms to expand our offer ecosystem.
- Champion operational excellence by optimizing internal processes (roadmapping, OKRs, experiment plans, etc.).
- 6 years of product management experience at a consumer software startup, with 3 years leading consumer-facing mobile teams in marketplaces, fintech or e-commerce
- Proven track record of leading 0 to 1 projects as well as building for millions of users at a high-performing software startup —demonstrated by leading early-stage product development and thriving in environments known for operational excellence
- Proven track record owning core products end-to-end: balancing user value, business economics and seamless experiences.
- Strong data fluency: comfortable defining hypotheses, designing experiments, interpreting results and making decisions with analytics.
- User-centric mindset: deep empathy for underserved audiences and the ability to translate qualitative insights into product priorities.
- Cross-functional leadership: skilled at driving alignment across Engineering, Design, Partnerships, Compliance and Ops.
- Execution excellence: demonstrated ability to break down complex initiatives into clear milestones and deliver on time.
- Exceptional communication: able to craft compelling narratives and presentations for leadership, board and external partners.
- Team builder & coach: experience growing PM talent, providing feedback and creating a safe, high-performance culture.
- Meaningful work and a strong shared sense of mission
- Remote-friendly work environment with a dog-friendly office in Downtown Brooklyn. The team meets in-person for optional retreats.
- 20 Days of PTO
- 4% 401K match
- $10k lifetime spend towards Carrot Fertility
- Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision options
- Other health and mental health focused benefits and perks
- Propel builds compensation bands referencing the 75th percentile of compensation for companies like us. Expected compensation for the role as scoped is $225,000 - $275,000 and will be based on how a candidate matches to our internal leveling guide. Bands may be expanded if someone is leveled more senior than the role was initially scoped.
- We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, and welcome applicants from all backgrounds and abilities.
- We're currently accepting applications from the states we have an established entity, which includes California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
Propel is a technology company that's strengthening the social safety net for people who receive government benefits. Over 5 million Americans trust the free, modern Propel app to manage their government benefits, save money, and get updates when their benefits change. We've also partnered with renowned institutions and organizations like Vote.org, GoFundMe, and GiveDirectly.
Propel is a for-profit, venture-backed company that holds its social mission at its core. We're proud to be supported by a blend of nonprofits, impact investors, and world-class investors including the Robin Hood Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz, Nyca Partners, Financial Health Network, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, Serena Williams, and Nas.
Learn more about our impact from the press
- Fintech Company Propel Announces $10 Million Fund For Food Stamp
- Late Show With Stephen Colbert
- How to Propel the Fight Against Poverty in America
- How Tech is Helping Poor People Get Government Aid
- Propel Routes Money to those Who Need it Most
- How one tech startup is giving cash to SNAP recipients
- Recipients Affected By Government Shutdown
- How hunger relief groups say you can help feed your neighbors during the shutdown and beyond
- Helping our Users Navigate this Crisis
Salary : $225,000 - $275,000