About this opportunity
Lookout Local lists this Director of Product Success opportunity in eugene, Oregon. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
About this position
About Lookout Local
Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s mission is to provide fair, accurate, and non-partisan news, focusing on the role of business in shaping a community through taxes and jobs. We are committed to reviving local journalism and engaging with the community to reflect their needs and interests. Lookout Eugene-Springfield now approaches its first anniversary, having already achieved great traction -- audience, membership, advertising, and community trust -- It is part of Lookout Local, a now fast-growing, next-generation West Coast-based local news network. Lookout Santa Cruz won the 2024 Pulitzer for Breaking News, and Lookout's fiercely mission-driven, business-driven model is winning wide national notice. Check out our network page:
Our workplaces are in-person, in-community, collaborative and collegial. We are building a diverse, highly skilled and mission-driven group of journalists, community builders and business people intent on maintaining our culture of learning, growth and community service.
About the role
Lookout is seeking a senior, mission-driven Director of Product Success to lead product strategy, experimentation, and business performance across our national platform. This is a high-impact leadership role with direct responsibility for the audience and revenue success of the products under its direction.
This role reports to the CEO and works in close partnership with the Chief of Staff and national leadership team. The Director of Product Success is accountable not only for building great products, but for ensuring those products materially advance Lookout’s growth, sustainability, and civic mission.
At its core, this role builds on top of Lookout’s newsroom-driven journalism—extending it into products that create deeper, more frequent, and more valuable daily relationships with readers.
What Product Success Means at Lookout
Product success at Lookout is defined by business outcomes, not just feature delivery. This role owns the performance of directed products in terms of:
Audience growth, engagement, and habit formation
Revenue generation, including membership, advertising, and emerging product revenue
Scalability, ensuring products can be replicated and adapted across markets
You will operate at two levels simultaneously:
Platform-wide leadership — optimizing Lookout’s core product ecosystem for engagement, information utility, and revenue.
News experimentation & next-stage products — leading the development, scaling, and monetization of new and evolving products that expand Lookout’s value beyond traditional news consumption.
Core Product & Information Scope
Native apps
Newsletters
Ask Lookout, our AI-powered local Answer Engine
Guides, explainers, and local life resources
Emerging reader-revenue and advertiser-supported products
A central responsibility of this role is to strengthen Lookout’s position as a trusted local information hub, where journalism, service, and guidance work together.
Major Strategic Focus Areas
Driving Daily Reader Engagement & Interaction
Building on core newsroom journalism, you will:
Increase daily and weekly usage across Lookout products
Design products that invite interaction, return visits, and habit formation
Extend journalism into formats that better match how people live, search, and decide
Partner with newsroom leaders to ensure product choices reinforce editorial excellence
Information as a Core Product (Ask Lookout)
You will lead product strategy for Lookout’s emerging role as a metro information center, including:
Product ownership of Ask Lookout, integrating AI-powered answers with trusted local reporting
Ensuring information products meet standards of accuracy, transparency, and trust
Using information demand signals to inform newsroom priorities and coverage
Developing sustainable models for monetizing high-value information services
Guides, Local Life Hacks & Service Journalism
You will oversee the development of an ongoing suite of products designed to add daily, practical value, including:
Evergreen and timely Guides (elections, housing, schools, transportation, health, local government)
Local “life hacks” that help residents navigate their communities
Systems and workflows that allow service journalism to scale sustainably
Revenue strategies tied to these products, including sponsorships, membership value, and advertising
Ownership of Key Next-Stage & Revenue Products
You will serve as product owner for a portfolio of high-priority products, including:
Neighborhood newsletters and hyperlocal formats
Obituaries as a reader- and advertiser-supported product
Legal advertising and public-notice products
For each, you are accountable for:
Clear product strategy and success metrics
Audience usage and revenue performance
Iterative improvement based on data and community feedback
Scalable playbooks for future Lookout launches
News Experimentation & Organizational Leadership
This role incorporates the mindset and practice of a Director of News Experimentation, including:
Targeted research to understand community needs and opportunities for deeper engagement
Designing and scaling systems and workflows that support journalism about, for, and with audiences
Developing new forms of information delivery and storytelling aligned with sustainability goals
Cultivating a culture of experimentation around information, in partnership with newsroom, revenue, and technology teams—and directly with community members
The ultimate goal: to connect Lookout’s journalism more closely to the daily lives, experiences, and habits of community members, growing total addressable audience and monetizable value.
AI & Process Innovation
Lookout is committed to responsible, practical use of AI in local journalism. In this role, you will:
Lead AI-enabled process improvements within selected products
Help integrate AI thoughtfully into newsroom and product workflows
Identify opportunities where automation and augmentation improve speed, quality, or sustainability
Ensure AI adoption aligns with Lookout’s editorial standards and public trust
What You’ll Bring
Senior-level experience leading digital products tied directly to audience and revenue growth
Background in media, news, marketplaces, SaaS, or consumer platforms
Demonstrated success launching and scaling new products or workflows
Comfort working across editorial, business, and technical functions
Strong product intuition grounded in data and community research
Experience with experimentation, service journalism, or information products a plus
A deep belief in the civic importance of strong, sustainable local journalism
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Worksite address
eugene, OR, 97403, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.