Product Manager, Activation & Growth

Character.AI http://Character.AI is building what comes after television, after gaming, after social media. We're creating a new medium—one where anyone can bring a character to life and share it with millions. Our platform is already one of the largest consumer AI products on Earth. Millions of people use Character every day to talk, play, learn, and create. Now we're building the tools and formats that will define what entertainment looks like for the next decade. The company has rapidly scaled to tens of millions of monthly active users, achieved unicorn status within roughly two years of launch, and has been recognized as Google Play’s AI App of the Year, underscoring its cultural relevance and product momentum. Product Overview Character.AI http://Character.AI’s core product is an immersive conversational platform where users interact with customizable AI characters across mobile and web. Key product pillars include: - AI Characters & Conversations: Deep, open-ended conversational experiences designed for long-form engagement. - Creative Tools: User-generated characters and worlds that encourage creation, remixing, and sharing. - Entertainment-Led UX: A focus on delight, emotional resonance, and repeat engagement rather than task completion. From a growth perspective, the product behaves like a hybrid of social, gaming, and subscription entertainment platforms, with strong network effects to delight and engage users. Role Overview: Product Manager, Activation & Growth This role owns the critical transition from first interaction to long-term engaged user. It sits at the center of product, data, engineering, and design, with direct ownership over the metrics that define Character.AI http://Character.AI’s growth engine. The PM will be responsible for building systems—not just features—that improve acquisition efficiency, accelerate time-to-value, and compound retention and monetization. Key Focus Areas - Activation & Onboarding: Optimizing the first-time user experience and reducing time-to-“aha.” - Experimentation at Scale: Running rigorous A/B tests across onboarding, engagement loops, and monetization flows. - Retention & Habit Formation: Improving D1/D7/D30 retention through product-led re-engagement. - Growth Loops: Designing viral and compounding mechanics that turn users into advocates. - Monetization: Optimizing free-to-play journeys while preserving product magic. Key Responsibilities - Own activation funnels, onboarding flows, and new user experience optimization - Design and execute A/B experiments across activation, retention, and monetization - Build and iterate on growth loops and viral mechanics - Partner with data science on cohort analysis, funnel metrics, and experimentation rigor - Collaborate with core product to ensure new features are instrumented for growth impact - Partner with monetization on driving subscription conversion and optimizing the freemium model - Identify friction points across the user lifecycle using quantitative and qualitative insights - Define, track, and report on key growth metrics (activation rate, D1/D7/D30 retention, LTV) Key Requirements - 5+ years of consumer product management experience - Proven ownership of growth, activation, retention, and/or monetization metrics - Proven track record of measurable impact on acquisition, activation, or retention at scale - Strong analytical skills (cohort analysis, funnels, experimentation frameworks) - Experience designing, running, and interpreting A/B tests - Ability to move fast, prioritize ruthlessly, and operate in ambiguity - Strong design sensibility and UX intuition What They’re Looking For Character.AI http://Character.AI is seeking a high-agency, experimentation-driven PM who can blend data rigor with creative instinct. This person should be comfortable owning ambiguous problem spaces and building systems that scale to tens or hundreds of millions of users. Ideal Candidate Profile - A “growth engineer” PM: data-informed but n