Director, Product Management, Search Monetization

Director, Product Management, Search Monetization

A Little About Us

Yahoo Search helps millions of people find information, answers, products, services, and inspiration across the web. The Search Product team is building the next generation of Yahoo Search, evolving both our traditional search results experience and new AI-powered experiences such as Scout.

Monetization is a critical part of that future. Our team is responsible for creating advertising experiences that deliver strong value for users, advertisers, and Yahoo. We work at the intersection of consumer experience, advertising technology, machine learning, data science, and business strategy, with an opportunity to both optimize a scaled existing business and define entirely new monetization models for AI-powered search.

About the Role

We are seeking aDirector of Product Management, Search Monetizationto own product strategy and execution for monetization across Yahoo Search.

This is a senior individual contributor role for a hands-on product leader with deep experience in sponsored search and search advertising. You will be responsible for improving the performance of advertising across our search results pages while protecting and improving the overall user experience. You will also help define the future of monetization for AI-powered Search, including Scout, developing new ad products and commercial experiences that feel native to how people discover information and make decisions in conversational and generative experiences.

This role combines optimization and invention. You will work deeply on ad relevance, ranking, placement, density, query coverage, marketplace dynamics, and experimentation, while also identifying and developing entirely new advertising concepts and business models.

You will partner closely with Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, Design, Research, Business Development, Finance, and other Product teams. Because Yahoo works with external advertising marketplaces and technology partners, you will also play an important role in defining product requirements, identifying opportunities, and working across partner ecosystems to improve monetization outcomes.

We are looking for someone who can move comfortably between strategy and execution: defining where Search monetization should go, digging into performance data to understand why RPM moved, working with engineers and data scientists on optimization opportunities, and developing new ideas for how advertising can create value in the next generation of Search.

Responsibilities

• Own the product vision, strategy, roadmap, and execution for monetization across Yahoo Search, spanning traditional search results pages and emerging AI-powered Search experiences.
• Drive meaningful improvements in Search revenue and RPM while maintaining clear user experience guardrails and high standards for ad quality and relevance.
• Optimize sponsored search across ad relevance, ranking, placement, density, presentation, query coverage, and other product and marketplace levers, including expanding monetizable query coverage where appropriate.
• Define and build a scalable monetization model for Scout and other AI-powered Search experiences, inventing, prototyping, testing, and scaling new advertising formats and commercial experiences for generative, conversational, and agentic interactions.
• Modernize Yahoo Search's approach to ad optimization, partnering with Engineering and Data Science on ranking systems, machine learning models, decisioning systems, experimentation capabilities, and supporting platform investments.
• Develop a deep understanding of Search monetization performance, using statistical analysis, experimentation, marketplace data, and user behavior to diagnose opportunities and prioritize investments.
• Design and interpret experiments in complex advertising marketplace environments, including situations where traditional experimentation is constrained by marketplace dynamics, partner systems, auction effects, or limited traffic.
• Establish success metrics and measurement frameworks that balance revenue, RPM, advertiser value, ad relevance, engagement, query coverage, and user experience.
• Partner closely with external advertising and technology partners, as well as Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and Design, to identify opportunities, define requirements, troubleshoot performance, launch new experiences, and move products from concept through scaled launch.
• Develop a strong understanding of advertiser needs, marketplace dynamics, competitive trends, and emerging advertising models, translating those insights into new product opportunities and clearly communicating strategy, performance, and tradeoffs to senior leaders.

Minimum Qualifications

• 9+ years of Product Management or equivalent experience, including significant experience building and optimizing advertising or monetization products at scale.
• 5+ years of direct experience withsearch advertising, sponsored search, or closely related performance advertising products, with a strong understanding of search intent, ad relevance, advertiser value, and user experience.
• Demonstrated success improving scaled advertising or monetization products through optimization, experimentation, and data-driven decision making, with strong knowledge of ad ranking, relevance, placement, coverage, yield, and marketplace dynamics.
• Experience working with programmatic advertising marketplaces, external ad platforms, advertising partners, or similar multi-party ecosystems.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills, including experience interpreting statistical analyses, marketplace data, large-scale product metrics, and experiments in environments where traditional A/B testing may have limitations.
• Technical fluency sufficient to work deeply with engineers and data scientists on machine learning models, ranking and decisioning systems, experimentation frameworks, data pipelines, and system architecture.
• Strong product judgment and user empathy, with demonstrated ability to balance monetization and consumer experience while translating ambiguous commercial opportunities into product concepts, hypotheses, experiments, and roadmaps.
• Ability to operate as a highly autonomous, hands-on senior individual contributor, moving fluidly between strategy and detailed execution and communicating complex product, technical, and business tradeoffs to senior leaders and cross-functional partners.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience owning monetization for a large-scale consumer search, commerce, marketplace, or discovery product.
• Experience building or optimizing advertising products powered by machine learning, relevance models, recommendation systems, auction systems, or marketplace technology.
• Experience developing new advertising formats or monetization models, including for AI-powered, conversational, generative, recommendation, or agentic consumer experiences.
• Experience working across multiple external advertising or technology partners where product performance depends on systems outside your direct ownership.
• Familiarity with advertiser economics, auction dynamics, conversion measurement, attribution, and other components of the advertising ecosystem.
• A track record of identifying non-obvious monetization opportunities and turning them into products that create meaningful value for users, advertisers, and the business, including using AI-assisted tools for analysis, ideation, prototyping, or product discovery.