Product Manager, Data Partnerships and Licensing

Since 2008, Smule has been transforming music from a passive listening experience into a collaborative, social form of creative expression. Our mission is to bring people together through music, empowering anyone, anywhere, to create, share, and connect through song. Today, tens of millions of people use Smule to make music together, creating more than 20 million songs every day. From aspiring singers to lifelong music lovers, our global community comes together to collaborate, discover new talent, and express themselves through music.

At Smule, you’ll have the opportunity to build products that inspire creativity, foster meaningful connections, and bring joy to millions of people around the world.

About The Role

We are hiring a Product Manager to own how Smule’s in-house models and proprietary audio and music data are licensed and delivered to business partners. This is a B2B role, and your customers are technical: research labs, audio software and hardware companies, AI developers, and music industry partners. You will work out what they need, decide what Smule can appropriately offer, and build the pipelines, interfaces, and documentation that make our data assets usable, well-governed, and commercially viable, always within the bounds of our licensing agreements and our privacy commitments to our community.

You will lead a dedicated development pod spanning audio engineering, data architecture, and machine learning research. That means working with Labs and Engineering on what is technically possible, with Legal on what is properly licensed, and with Business Development as the technical voice on partner calls. This is not a sales role, but you will be on those calls.

What You’ll Do

• Own the roadmap for Smule’s data and model licensing offerings, from discovery through definition and delivery.

• Develop a clear point of view on which data assets are valuable to which partners, and how that value maps to customer outcomes and Smule’s business goals.

• Define requirements for the storage and processing pipelines behind partner delivery: formats, volumes, delivery cadences, and quality standards.

• Own the internal and partner-facing interfaces for querying, previewing, and retrieving licensed data, treating them as a real product with versioning, reliability expectations, and a deprecation path.

• Write and maintain the technical documentation, specifications, and data dictionaries partners integrate against.

• Lead a cross-functional pod of audio engineers, data architects, and ML researchers: setting priorities, sequencing work, and clearing blockers.

• Balance platform investment against complex, partner-specific deliverables, and adjust quickly when partner priorities shift.

• Navigate music rights and licensing questions with sound judgment, and know when to bring in Legal.

• Partner with Legal and Engineering on data governance: provenance, rights and consent tracking, retention, auditability, and privacy obligations tied to user-contributed audio.

• Act as the technical resource on partner calls, speaking credibly with music and speech researchers, audio product engineers, and AI developers.

• Define and drive success metrics for the delivery pipeline, including reliability, data quality, and time to fulfill a partner request.

What You’ll Bring

• 4+ years of product management experience, with a track record on technical, data, platform, or API products serving business or developer customers.

• Strong product sense in a B2B context. You understand what a customer needs, including what they have not articulated, and turn it into clear requirements.

• Strong project management fundamentals. You can run a multi-disciplinary team, sequence complex deliverables, hold a schedule, and reprioritize credibly when things change.

• Working knowledge of music rights and licensing, enough to reason about what an agreement allows, spot risk in a partner request, and know when a question belongs with Legal.

• Demonstrated fluency in audio and/or music information retrieval (MIR). You can hold a substantive technical conversation with researchers, audio engineers, and ML practitioners.

• Comfort with data infrastructure concepts: pipelines, schemas, storage and processing trade-offs, and query interfaces. You can read a spec and reason about trade-offs without needing them translated.

• Excellent written communication. This role produces technical documents that external partners depend on.

• The ability to prioritize well in a fast-paced, resource-constrained environment.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience with data licensing, content licensing, or AI training-data partnerships.

• Hands-on background in audio engineering, DSP, MIR research, or machine learning, including academic or applied research.

• Experience shipping developer-facing platforms, APIs, or SDKs, including documentation and versioning practices.

• Familiarity with data privacy and voice or biometric data regulation as it applies to user-contributed recordings.

• Experience in music, audio, or entertainment technology.

• Comfort working directly with data in SQL or an equivalent.

• A bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, or equivalent practical experience.

Why Join Our Team?

• Flexible time off

• 12 observed holidays

• Comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, and supplemental insurance, available from your first day of employment at low or no cost to you

• Employer-paid life and short-term disability insurance

• Employer contributions to employee HSA accounts

• Well-being subscriptions, including Headspace and Wellhub

• Cell phone and internet reimbursement to support hybrid work

• Home office stipend to help create your ideal workspace

Smule is an Equal Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law.

We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and applicants. If you require a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know.