Principal Product Manager

Who We Are

Summer is a Certified B Corp® with a mission to maximize savings for the 46 million Americans burdened by student debt. Summer combines policy expertise with innovative tech to help borrowers simplify college cost planning and student loan repayment, generating $278/month in savings per person and $1.8B in savings for our users to date. Watch our product overview and hear from our members on how Summer has put them on the path to becoming debt free.

Summer has raised $30 million to date from world-class investors, including QED Investors, General Catalyst, Greycroft, Rebalance Capital, SemperVirens, Foundation Capital, Story Ventures, NextView, Flourish Ventures, and the Financial Health Network. We've partnered with dozens of clients who pay for Summer to assist their employees and customers, including the city government of Alexandria, Virginia, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Diabetes Association, Asurion, the City of New York, ADP and more.

Your RoleWe are seeking an experienced Principal Product Manager to join our dynamic team. As Principal Product Manager, you will play a pivotal role in driving the strategic development and enhancement of our products while leading and mentoring our product organization. We are seeking candidates who:

• Approach every situation–whether it's throwing a birthday bash or planning a new product feature–with creativity, strong planning, and resourcefulness, encouraging teamwork and fostering a sense of camaraderie throughout;
• Are excited about seeking opportunities to bring new technology to serve people at scale in meaningful ways; and
• Have a relentless drive for results, measuring and monitoring progress towards their goals along the way.

If this sounds like you, come join us as we build innovative solutions that help millions of student loan borrowers achieve billions of dollars in savings.

Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Define and drive the overall product vision and strategy across multiple product lines, ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives and market opportunities in the fintech and student lending space.
• Cross-Portfolio Impact: Drive the creation of high-impact features, integrations, and platform capabilities that deliver transformational value to both business clients and end consumers by thoroughly understanding the nuances of our market's jobs-to-be-done.
• Product Excellence: Translate complex market signals and user insights into clear, prioritized product requirements and strategic initiatives in collaboration with design, engineering, and other stakeholders across the organization.
• Market Intelligence: Lead comprehensive market research, competitive analysis, and user feedback initiatives to identify emerging trends, anticipate customer pain points, and uncover breakthrough opportunities for product innovation.
• Roadmap Ownership: Develop and maintain enterprise-level product roadmaps that balance short-term execution with long-term strategic vision, ensuring alignment across business objectives, customer needs, and evolving market dynamics.
• Organizational Leadership: Serve as the primary product subject matter expert and thought leader, providing strategic guidance and mentorship to cross-functional teams, including sales, marketing, customer support, operations, and junior product team members.
• Culture & Team Development: Drive a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the product team and across the organization, while coaching and developing product management talent.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Lead advanced analysis of product data, user engagement, key metrics, and feedback to measure product performance, identify optimization opportunities, and drive strategic product decisions that maximize value creation for users and business outcomes.
• Stakeholder Management: Partner with executive leadership, board members, and key external stakeholders to communicate product strategy, progress, and business impact.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree. Traditionally, this is in the field of Business, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Computer Science, or Engineering, but we welcome you to introduce us to something that brings other valuable insight to the team.
• MBA or other advanced degree is strongly preferred.
• Proven track record of 8+ years of experience in product management roles, with at least 3+ years in senior or principal-level positions, preferably in the fintech industry and/or a focus on B2B2C products.
• Demonstrated success in leading and scaling product organizations, including experience managing and mentoring product managers and cross-functional teams.
• Exceptional leadership and executive communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively with C-level executives, board members, and stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Proven ability to thrive and drive results in dynamic startup environments, with a strategic yet hands-on approach to complex problem-solving and decision-making.
• Expert-level ability to think strategically across multiple time horizons, including the ability to balance immediate execution needs with long-term strategic vision and bring diverse stakeholders along for complex transformational initiatives.
• Advanced analytical and quantitative skills; expertise in data analysis, financial modeling, and business case development.
• Track record of successful product launches and measurable business impact in high-growth technology companies.

Title and salary varies based on skills assessment and relevant experience.

Values

We're proud to be a mission-driven company with an inclusive culture. Our greatest asset is the set of values our team strives to embody every day: empathy, diversity, growth, determination, humility, and fun. Learn more about culture at Summer.

We also offer competitive salaries, significant equity allocations, healthcare coverage, 401(k) plans with an employer match, contribution toward student loan repayment, and flexible vacation/PTO. Summer supports a hybrid, flexible work environment and we welcome applicants from anywhere in the United States. 

Sound interesting? We look forward to hearing from you. Join us to help fix the system!

--

Summer provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.