Principal Product Manager (IC)

Role: Principal Product Manager (IC)

Location: Chicago | Hybrid (3 days in office)

Type: Full-time

🌍 Our vision

Every child deserves a better start toward the best possible future.

The right educator in the right classroom at the right time can change a child’s chances and, at scale, a nation’s trajectory. Yet too much of our education system’s time, money and talent are lost to inefficiency.

At Zen Educate we’re changing that through technology: helping schools save millions in tight times, helping educators find work that rewards their skills and fits their lives, and building a better-educated society that invests its best in every child.

That outcome (the right educator, in the right classroom, at the right time, everywhere) is our product. The software, tools, systems, processes, and people are how we make it happen.

👋 Hi, I’m Dan Cohen

I’m the Chief Product Officer here at Zen Educate.

We’ve already helped schools save over £30 million so far. That feels great, but honestly it just shows what’s possible when the system works better and we have a long way to go!

Now we’re scaling fast in the UK and US, and the next chapter is about building the machine that keeps delivering that outcome at scale.

To do that, we’re looking for a Principal Product Manager who’s outcome-obsessed, data-savvy and happy being in the messy middle where product, people and process meet.

This isn’t a people-management role, although it will require a great deal of leadership. It’s an individual contributor role for a savvy Product Operator who still loves building: defining problems, finding leverage and turning ambiguity into momentum.

If you like figuring things out, getting teams moving and seeing your work directly improve real people’s lives, you’ll enjoy this.

🧭 What “product” means here

At Zen, “product” doesn’t stop at the software. The software is one part of a much bigger system that connects schools, teachers, data and processes.

Sometimes the right answer is a feature. Sometimes it’s an operational tweak, a better metric or a mindset shift that changes how people work. You’ll care more about the outcome than about what shape the solution takes.

💡 What you’ll be doing

• Frame real problems and find the shortest path to proving or disproving them
• Combine qualitative insight with quantitative data to guide priorities
• Work closely with design, engineering and ops to ship, learn and repeat
• Define success metrics that link to business outcomes
• Keep improving how we do product at Zen through better tools, habits and feedback loops

You’ll be in the thick of it: shaping, testing, talking to users, untangling blockers and helping the team focus on what moves the needle.

🧩 The kind of PM we’re looking for

The kind who’s calm in the chaos and curious in the unknown.

You’re a natural mediator who can hold multiple perspectives, keep your head when others are flapping, and help a team find alignment without fuss. You know when to lead and when to let others run with it.

You’re also a restless learner. You collect ideas and frameworks for fun. You’re at your best when something is fuzzy and needs shaping into something testable. You get itchy when there’s too much uncertainty and have a near-compulsive need to turn ambiguity into action. Once it’s clear enough, you move fast.

You’re probably happiest when you’re learning, shipping and seeing tangible change.

🎓 The experience we think helps

There’s no single route, but it’ll help if you have:

• 10+ years building and scaling digital products or systems with measurable impact in a marketplace business, and for extra credit, in EdTech or adjacent verticals or a hybrid physical and digital environment
• Experience running discovery, experiments and delivery end-to-end across a portfolio of product lines
• Setting strategic goals and driving delivery of products or experiences which achieve them
• Comfort working with data (spreadsheets, dashboards, BI systems or SQL if needed)
• Strong collaboration with engineers, designers, operations, sales and growth teams
• Evidence of making complex problems and systems simple and usable

🎁 What you’ll get

• Work that directly improves children’s futures
• Competitive salary and stock options
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Health and life insurance
• Cycle to Work and Electric Vehicle schemes
• Coaching and development support
• A culture that values clarity, pace and sustainability alongside human kindness and understanding

🤝 How we hire

We keep it simple:

Intro chat – a real conversation, not a quiz

Product deep dive – how you think, what you’ve built, what you’ve learned

Competency and behavioural based interview

Task and meet the team!

We’ll tell you what’s great, what’s still messy and where you’ll have an impact. We expect you to do the same.

If you’re excited by the idea of building the machine that gets the right educator into the right classroom at the right time, let’s talk.

💜 Diversity & inclusion

At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all.

We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives, just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.

We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team.