Product Notes: How to create opportunities for career growth in news product

Hi, everyone!

I’m Madison Karas, a product manager for the Tiny News Collective, and I’m delighted to contribute to Product Notes this summer. I’ve been an NPA member since the early stages of my career, and this community has been essential to my growth in news product.

At a time when news organizations are still learning to incorporate product thinking, I have had to experiment with ways to develop my skills. My path has included on-the-job learning and professional development courses. Still, the path hasn’t always felt clear-cut — even as news product grows, there isn’t a standard career ladder for professionals to follow.

Out of 543 respondents who took the 2025 News Product Census, 38 percent have formal product titles, while 47 percent do product-related work without formal product titles. Yet product maturity within organizations is showing progress: 39 percent of respondents report that product management is “emerging” in their organizations, while 31 percent consider it “well-established.” The rest have no formal product management practice, but apply product thinking to their work, or said that product management is not well understood or valued within their organizations.

As news organizations begin to incorporate product practices, support for professional development still isn’t always available. This means emerging product talent must often create their own growth opportunities. I’ve outlined some strategies for career growth that I and other members of the NPA community have taken in the absence of clear next steps on a ladder.

Be open with management about your goals 

At a conference, I was once told, “If your manager doesn’t know your career goals, that’s a problem,” and it changed my strategy. In my next one-on-one with my manager, I brought up the skill sets I was interested in developing, and we made plans to get me more involved in an upcoming project where I could build on them. 

“A productive relationship with your manager is going to have lots of trust and transparency, and your manager cannot support you if they don’t know where you need support,” says Bridget Thoreson, creator of the Explore Your Career River Substack and Chief Project Officer/Dream Wrangler at Hearken.

The need for transparency can be especially pertinent in news product roles, she adds. Journalism and product teams shift so rapidly that finding growth opportunities requires intentionality. Being openly curious with your manager can reveal opportunities for growth. And for managers, supporting direct reports in pursuing work that aligns with their interests ultimately helps create a better product.

“If you have that really adaptive mindset, you’re going to be able to find what I would call your current of what’s going to push you in the direction you want to go,” Bridget says. 

Make a pitch to evolve or create a role

When the next product opportunity isn’t available, pitch it yourself. That’s what several NPA community members did after taking on product-focused responsibilities in their organizations and recognizing a gap in product strategy across teams.

• Robin Kwong successfully pitched his former Special Projects Editor role at The Financial Times after observing a growing need for collaboration and coordination on digital projects. He realized the team lacked a formal structure to manage them, and workshopped the role with several colleagues before obtaining higher-ups’ approval.
• McKenzie Morgan, Audience Product Manager at Technical.ly, made a case for a title change with her manager, incorporating audience development into her role. She demonstrated that formalizing her responsibilities around that practice area was mutually beneficial for her and her organization.
• Matt Taylor got his first product manager title when he initiated the strategizing and cross-functional collaboration on software development among editorial, business, and engineering teams at The Times.

The key to success in developing these roles was demonstrating how the proposed move responded to growing organizational needs and how it would help meet the organization’s goals.

“It would not have been enough for me to say that I wanted to manage more special projects, or that I felt that I was good at managing projects,” Robin says. “I had to explain clearly how that would benefit the newsroom overall.”

Invest in your career outside of your organization

Like product development, your career development can be iterative — starting with small, experimental changes that lead to movement. This often takes place outside of our primary roles.

“When you are trying a new skill on the side, or when you are taking a course to learn something new, you’re taking actions that will get you where you want to go,” Bridget says. “You’re going to do what you can in this moment to move forward — and so often, that’s how real change happens.” 

I landed my first product role after mentors guided me to take a General Assembly product management course, which gave me foundational skills and a product community. That’s also when I became more involved with journalism and product communities, such as NPA, Gather, Product School, and All Tech Is Human.

Other respondents to the News Product Census mentioned taking courses on Coursera or CUNY’s Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership. Sydney Lewis, Associate Product Manager at The Minnesota Star Tribune, says taking NPA’s News Product Management Certificate is helping her learn more about engineering and finance, which she identified as knowledge gaps in her role. She’s inspired to seek opportunities outside of her role to learn things she wouldn’t otherwise get exposure to in her current position.

This can happen by venturing outside of news product, too.

• Robin has learned from ethnography conferences he’s attended how to better understand and influence culture.
• McKenzie freelances for feature magazines and finds that staying connected to editorial work helps her “focus the goals” of her projects in her primary role.
• NPA Slack community members have shared how endeavors outside of news enhanced their product skills, such as creating a community-focused baking product to connect neighbors or building a bean blog to learn more about a platform.

Do you relate to any of these career growth strategies? Careers can take shape in so many ways, especially during volatile times for journalism and tech. If these resonated with you or you have strategies to share, drop a note in the #career-development channel in Slack. For my next piece, I’m looking to speak with folks who’ve moved between news and non-news product roles. If that’s you, reach out in Slack!

And if you’re looking for inspiration for your next step in product, I’d recommend registering for the NPA Summit 2025 this October, checking out Bridget’s Explore Your Career River (a 30-day free trial is available), and taking a look at Journalism.wtf’s conference and community listings.