Director of Product, Ads

Job description

**About the Team:** Grindr is an AI-native platform powering how millions of gay people connect globally. With 15M+ monthly users, 130B+ annual messages, and a team of fewer than 200, we move fast, stay lean, and tackle technical problems at a scale few companies ever see. The Director of Ads Product owns the product vision and roadmap for Grindr's advertising business. It's one of the most compelling opportunities in consumer tech today. Grindr reaches one of the most engaged and hard-to-reach audiences on the internet, and advertising is already a proven, high-margin line of business for us. We've validated the opportunity. Now we're ready to invest in it for the long-term — with real engineering investment, a dedicated product team, and a long-term commitment to becoming a world-class ad platform. This is a rare chance to set the strategy, build the team, and define what great looks like for an advertising business that serves the GBT community and our growth goals. The person who joins here will be building something that matters — for Grindr, for our users, and for the advertisers who want to reach them. At Grindr, we operate in Grindr Mode. Moderately hardcore day to day, truly hardcore when it counts. It’s about doing great work without burning out. Outcomes over outputs. Smart, driven people who raise your bar, with room to live full lives. This is a *hybrid* role based in our San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York office and will require you to be in person Tuesdays and Thursdays. **About the Job:** - Define and own Grindr's advertising product strategy and roadmap - spanning programmatic infrastructure, rewarded ads, high-value ad formats, self-serve and direct ad platforms, delivery systems, and measurement - and translate that strategy into sequenced bets that drive measurable revenue growth without compromising user trust or product quality - Partner closely with engineering, data science, and go-to-market teams to ship ad products that are best-in-class for advertisers and so seamlessly integrated that they enhance - not interrupt - the Grindr experience - Build and scale Grindr's rewarded ads portfolio, identifying where ads can create genuine value for users and where existing experiences need to be improved, reduced, or rethought - Lead a small, high-caliber ads PM team, setting the hiring bar, developing talent, and building a culture of accountability and craft - Drive the evolution of Grindr's ad tech stack - diagnosing supply quality issues, optimizing publisher-side ad logic, and making build vs. buy decisions that set the team up for long-term scale - Use data, experimentation, and market insight to evaluate ads performance, diagnose issues, and identify opportunities that directly move Grindr's bottom line - Partner closely with Ad Sales and Finance teams to deliver financial targets for a public company **Role Requirements:** - 8-10+ years of product management experience, with 6+ years of meaningful ownership of consumer-facing ads, programmatic advertising, rewarded ads, or adjacent monetization products - Demonstrated track record of building and scaling an ads product from an early stage - not just operating a mature platform - including experience designing and testing new ad formats, delivery systems, and monetization infrastructure - Strong consumer product judgment, with a track record of building experiences that balance user needs, business outcomes, and technical constraints - Strong data fluency, including comfort using metrics, experimentation, and performance analysis to make high-stakes product decisions - Experience leading and growing a product team, including hiring, developing, and managing performance of senior ICs - Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders and serve as the product point of contact for a complex, business-critical domain - Familiarity with and passion for the Grindr product and user experience **You May Thrive in this Role if You:** - Have seen what great looks like at a scaled ad platform and have also built something meaningful from scratch - you know what you're aiming for and how to get there without a blueprint - Operate with founder energy - you don't wait for direction, you create it, and you're excited to roll up your sleeves alongside your team - Bring a genuine point of view on how to reach and serve the LGBTQ+ community through advertising - and are excited about the whitespace that represents for brands - Are AI-native or rapidly becoming so - you actively use AI tools in your workflow and are always looking for new ways to leverage them **Benefits and Perks:** - **Health, Dental & Vision** Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents. - **Family Formation** Up to $300,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption. - **Retirement:** 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting. - **Compensation:** Industry-competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee. - **Gender-Affirming Care** : Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more. - **Time Off & Rest** Flexible vacation policy. Two company-wide rest weeks per year. - **Other Benefits:** Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch **About Grindr:** Grindr is building the Global Gayborhood in your Pocket. With more than 15 million monthly active users, Grindr has become a fundamental part of the gay community and is charting a path to make the world more free, equal, and just. As a public company, we're moving into the next chapter: becoming an AI-native organization that's redefining what's possible for our community. We're embedding AI into our product and operations, moving with startup speed while operating at scale. Everything we do is rooted in impact for our users and outcomes for the business. This isn't social work, it’s impact through excellence. Business success is what gives us the power to serve our community and the seat at tables others can't reach. How we work is defined by Grindr Mode, our operating model that's moderately hardcore day-to-day and truly hardcore when it counts. We think like owners, drive real outcomes, create clarity through action, and push each other to go further than we thought possible. We’re headquartered in West Hollywood with offices in the Bay Area, Chicago, and New York. Our work extends beyond the product through Grindr for Equality, our social impact initiative that's partnered with 100+ community organizations globally to advance safety, health, and human rights for LGBTQ+ people worldwide. We're profitable, growing, and building a team of smart, driven people who bring different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to the work. Want to build technology at a massive scale that serves millions? Come join us! **Grindr is an equal-opportunity employer.** To learn more about how we handle the personal data of applicants, visit our [Employee and Candidate Privacy Policy](https://www.grindr.com/privacy-policy/applicant-privacy-policy/).