Job Description

About SmartNews 

SmartNews is a leading global information and news discovery company dedicated to delivering quality information to the people who need it. Thanks to our unique machine-learning technology and relationships with more than 3,000 global publisher partners, we provide news that matters to millions of users.

Founded in 2012 in Tokyo, SmartNews also has offices in Palo Alto, New York, Beijing, and Singapore.

If you share our vision and are passionate about our mission, we encourage you to apply!

The Team

At SmartNews, our Ads team plays a critical role in delivering on our mission to “Deliver the world’s quality information to the people who need it.” We do this by supporting a healthy content ecosystem while thoughtfully integrating advertising in ways that enhance the user experience. By curating relevant, high-quality ads and maintaining a seamless in-app experience, we help businesses connect with engaged audiences while ensuring our users encounter respectful and meaningful ad content. The result is a win-win dynamic that supports both our content partners and our advertisers—without compromising user trust.

Your Role

This Product Manager/Senior Product Manager will define and drive SmartNews’s ads supply strategy, shaping how ads are delivered, surfaced, and experienced across our platform. You will lead initiatives across ad format innovation, inventory design, traffic allocation, and surface-level user experience—ensuring ads are seamlessly integrated and aligned with both monetization goals and product quality standards.

Sitting at the center of a cross-functional effort, you will collaborate closely with engineering, design, consumer product, data, and sales teams to turn strategic vision into product execution. From concept to launch to iteration, your work will play a pivotal role in building a sustainable, high-quality monetization engine that delivers value to advertisers without compromising user trust.

Responsibilities

• Ship positive ad experiences that respect users and deliver value to advertisers across SmartNews.
• Build 1P ads supply strategy as part of overarching ads product strategy.
• Translate the ads supply strategy into execution through cross-functional collaboration.
• Make hard decisions to prioritize, pivot, and cancel initiatives.
• Lead and motivate team to deliver impactful products.
• Manage the product life cycle.

Requirements

Minimum requirements

• 6+ years of product management or equivalent experience. 3+ years within AdTech
• Proven experience working on large cross-functional initiatives
• Strong understanding of digital advertising and consumer privacy best practices
• Experience of navigating through a successful full product lifecycle
• Attention to details while keeping the big picture
• Strong stakeholder management, communication and interpersonal skills
• Exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills

Nice to have experiences/skills

• Technical or quantitative degree (computer science, engineering, mathematics, statistics, economics or related field)
• Experience with building 1st party ads products (eg. search, native or display)
• Proficiency in Japanese language is highly valued

Working condition

• Office Location: Tokyo

Benefits

Benefits available at the SmartNews Tokyo Office

• All healthcare and social insurance required by the Japanese labor law, plus annual health check
• Visa sponsorship and overseas relocation support available for eligible candidates

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