Principal Product Manager, Growth

Upwork Inc.’s (Nasdaq: UPWK) family of companies connects businesses with global, AI-enabled talent across every contingent work type including freelance, fractional, and payrolled. This portfolio includes the Upwork Marketplace, which connects businesses with on-demand access to highly skilled talent across the globe, and Lifted, which provides a purpose-built solution for enterprise organizations to source, contract, manage, and pay talent across the full spectrum of contingent work. From Fortune 100 enterprises to entrepreneurs, businesses rely on Upwork Inc. to find and hire expert talent, leverage AI-powered work solutions, and drive business transformation. With access to professionals spanning more than 10,000 skills across AI & machine learning, software development, sales & marketing, customer support, finance & accounting, and more, the Upwork family of companies enables businesses of all sizes to scale, innovate, and transform their workforces for the age of AI and beyond.

Since its founding, Upwork Inc. has facilitated more than $30 billion in total transactions and services as it fulfills its purpose to create opportunity in every era of work. Learn more about the Upwork Marketplace at Upwork.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X; and learn more about Lifted at Go-Lifted and follow on LinkedIn.

One of our product principles at Upwork is to make our customers win big. As a Principal Product Manager, Growth, you will shape and drive the end-to-end growth strategy across the client lifecycle, spanning acquisition, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetization for both enterprise and non-enterprise segments. This role carries General Manager level business ownership without people management responsibility. You will operate with broad autonomy, influence cross-functional partners, and drive measurable business impact at scale.

You will identify and develop new growth levers while optimizing existing ones, balancing short-term experimentation with long-term platform health. Your work will directly influence revenue expansion, client success, and durable marketplace growth.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute a comprehensive product-led growth strategy across the client lifecycle, aligning initiatives to measurable business outcomes such as activation rate, retention, and revenue growth.

• Own critical growth metrics end-to-end, proactively identifying risks, surfacing tradeoffs, and driving cross-functional alignment to achieve sustained impact.

• Lead high-velocity experimentation by designing, prioritizing, and scaling experiments that unlock new acquisition, onboarding, and monetization levers.

• Partner closely with Engineering, Design, Data Science, Marketing, and Sales to translate insights into shipped product experiences that improve client outcomes.

• Leverage qualitative and quantitative data to uncover systemic friction points and architect solutions that improve the holistic customer experience.

• Apply AI tools to accelerate research, synthesize insights, draft product artifacts, and evaluate experimentation results, refining outputs for accuracy and business relevance.

• Influence company-wide strategy by articulating clear narratives, writing high-quality product documents, and aligning senior stakeholders around growth priorities.

What it takes to catch our eye

• Demonstrated experience owning and scaling product-led growth strategies in a SaaS or marketplace environment, with measurable impact on acquisition, activation, retention, or monetization.

• Strong business acumen with the ability to think holistically about lifecycle economics, tradeoffs, and long-term platform health.

• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive alignment on complex, ambiguous initiatives without formal authority.

• High analytical fluency with experience using experimentation frameworks, data analysis, and structured problem solving to inform decisions.

• Capable-level AI proficiency, including using AI tools to synthesize research, refine product strategy documents, support experimentation design, and critically evaluate outputs for quality and accuracy.

Come change how the world works.

Upwork is establishing an operational hub in Toronto, Canada. The new office is expected to be fully operational by Q4 2026. This role will require 3 days in office once we have an office open.

This position will initially be employed through a partner to ensure a seamless hiring process while we establish the hub. Once the hub is established, there may be opportunities to transition to employment with Upwork, depending on business needs and other requirements. While employed by the partner, you’ll work as part of Upwork’s team, with access to our resources, culture, and growth opportunities.

Our partner will offer competitive benefits. When Upwork’s hub is established, we will be excited to offer employment and benefits directly as business needs require. 

Upwork is committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforce. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law.

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