Product Manager

About Primer

Primer is a growing network of K–8 schools restoring the timeless foundations of American education. Inspired by the original teaching primers that shaped a nation of readers, thinkers, and builders, our schools begin with what has always worked, and build for what lies ahead. Close-knit learning environments. Skilled educators. A culture that takes kids seriously as learners and leaders.

Primers shaped the first 200 years of American children. Primer will ready them for the next.

Role Overview

We're looking for a Product Manager to help build PrimerOS — the software, AI, and data layer that powers how Primer operates.

Unlike traditional edtech companies, we don't sell software to schools. We operate them — opening campuses , hiring educators , supporting families, tracking student growth, and helping teachers run great classrooms every day.

As Primer grows, our biggest challenge is operating many more excellent schools without scaling the number of humans required to run them at the same rate. That efficiency is what keeps Primer affordable for every family. This role is about turning the messy, magical reality of schools into systems that make Primer more consistent, more scalable, and more human. Every minute we give back to a teacher is a minute spent with kids.

This role is based in our San Francisco office, working closely with product, engineering, operations, andAcademics, teams — and spending time inside our schools with teachers , understanding how they actually work.

What You'll Do

Primer faces some of the hardest (and most exciting!) problems in education.

You'll take the daily reality of running schools and turn it into simple, useful products. That might mean building systems that help teams understand campus health, surface issues before they escalate, reduce administrative work for educators, or help operators make better decisions across a growing network.

You'll own projects from early discovery through launch — spending time with campus leaders, market teams, educators, and central operators to understand where work breaks down, then partnering with engineering to build those tools. Expect to run time studies on campus and obsess over the 30 seconds tech can hand back to a teacher

Your job is to answer questions like:

• How do we operate 10x more schools with only 2x the operational headcount?

• How do we know when a campus needs support before it becomes obvious?

• How can AI reduce repetitive work while strengthening human judgment?

• How do we make school operations feel lighter, clearer, and more consistent for the people doing the work?

As one of the early product leaders on PrimerOS, you'll help set the standards for how we build products, how we use AI, and how software changes the way our schools operate.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of product management experience.

• Experience building products for complex, physical workflows

• Strong product taste.

• Comfort working in messy, real-world environments. You like sitting with operators, watching how work actually happens, and finding the hidden bottlenecks.

• Analytical enough to reason from data, practical enough to know when the truth is in the field.

• Ability to own projects end to end — from problem discovery and strategy to specs, launch, adoption, and iteration.

• Clear writing and structured thinking.

• Excited to work on-site in San Francisco.

Something Extra: We value diverse backgrounds — whether in education, healthcare, logistics, marketplaces, compliance, field operations, or something entirely different. Anything that taught you how complex human systems really work.

Why this role may not be a fit

• You're used to clean, digital-only product work. This job lives in messy physical workflows — watching teachers work, running time studies on campus, sitting with operators. Someone who builds from dashboards and user interviews over Zoom will struggle.

• You need a defined playbook. As one of the early product leaders on PrimerOS, you're setting the standards, not inheriting them. If you do your best work inside an established product org with mature processes, rituals, and clear swim lanes, this will feel chaotic.

• You're not energized by the mission. Every problem here routes back to teachers and kids. Someone who'd approach this as just another PM gig — without genuine interest in how schools actually run — won't last through the campus visits and time studies.

• You lean strategist over operator. The role demands end-to-end ownership: discovery, specs, launch, adoption, iteration. If your strength is decks and roadmaps but execution gets handed off, the "own it all" expectation will expose that gap.

Primer is a mission-first company. We believe our mission is the highest-leverage way we can create positive change. In service of that, we keep work centered on mission execution and avoid social or political activism at work that’s unrelated to the mission. If that energizes you, we’d love to see you apply.