eCommerce Product Manager, Discovery + Taxonomy

companyDescription CREATIVITY IS OUR SUPERPOWER. It’s our heritage and it’s also our future. Because we don’t just make toys. We create innovative products and experiences that inspire fans, entertain audiences and develop children through play. Mattel is at its best when every member of our team feels respected, included, and heard—when everyone can show up as themselves and do their best work every day. We value and share an infinite range of ideas and voices that evolve and broaden our perspectives with a reach that extends into all our brands, partners, and suppliers. jobDescription The Opportunity: We are seeking a key addition to our eCommerce Product Management team to lead product discovery and taxonomy strategy across our global direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecosystem, including the Mattel Creations, American Girl and Shop sites. This role focuses on how customers find, navigate, and explore products and content, spanning search, browse, filtering, and personalized discovery experiences. You will operate at the intersection of information architecture, metadata, AI-driven search, and recommendation systems, ensuring customers can seamlessly discover relevant products across both high-intent and inspiration-led journeys. At a global, cross-brand scale, you will balance consistency, scalability, and brand-specific needs, driving a unified discovery platform powered by a shared taxonomy, structured product data, and a design system. A critical component of this role is improving the quality, structure, and governance of product and taxonomy data to enable better search relevance, personalization, SEO performance, and emerging generative discovery experiences (GEO). You will identify high-impact opportunities within discovery and lead initiatives that improve findability, engagement, and conversion, using experimentation, data, and strong product judgment to prioritize effectively and drive measurable business outcomes. What Your Impact Will Be: Collaborate with senior leadership to shape and inform the discovery and taxonomy product roadmap, ensuring alignment to business priorities, customer needs, and scalable platform strategy Drive the strategy and execution of search, browse, filtering, taxonomy, and discovery systems across Mattel DTC experiences Define and evolve taxonomy structures, metadata models, and entity relationships across global product catalogs, enabling scalable and consistent discovery experiences Improve product data quality and structure to support search relevance, personalization, recommendations, SEO performance, and AI-driven discovery Partner with engineering to build scalable tagging and enrichment systems that ensure products are consistently and accurately categorized, enriched, and structured across platforms Drive personalized discovery and recommendation strategies, including related products, “complete the set,” trending, and contextual recommendations, optimizing ranking and algorithm performance over time Own and scale a robust experimentation framework, designing and prioritizing A/B and multivariate tests across search, browse, and recommendations to inform product decisions and algorithm optimization Evaluate discovery performance using quantitative and qualitative signals (e.g., query behavior, model evaluation metrics, CTR, conversion), and continuously optimize experiences based on insights Partner with analytics and engineering to improve AI-driven and LLM-powered discovery capabilities, including semantic search, query understanding, and hybrid retrieval systems Drive SEO as a growth channel, ensuring taxonomy, product data, and content strategy support new customer acquisition and align with both traditional and generative search engines Partner cross-functionally with merchandising, content, marketing, and analytics to ensure high-quality inputs into discovery systems, including structured metadata and SEO-optimized content Translate complex backend systems and data models into intuitive, high-performing user experiences Manage a diverse set of stakeholders and drive alignment across product, engineering, design, data science, and business teams Facilitate discussions, navigate trade-offs, and ensure decisions are grounded in customer value, business impact, and platform scalability Ensure all key use cases (including edge cases) are considered, delivering robust, scalable, and high-quality discovery experiences Support broader eCommerce initiatives as needed, contributing to continuous improvement of the end-to-end journey Key Metrics You’ll Influence Search success rate / reduced zero-result queries Improvement in semantic match quality and intent satisfaction Performance of recommendation and personalization systems (CTR, conversion lift, revenue per session) Metadata completeness, accuracy, and consistency SEO performance (organic traffic, new-to-brand users, indexation) Visibility and performance in AI-driven discovery surfaces (GEO) Conversion, engagement, and retention driven by discovery qualifications What We’re Looking For: Required 8+ years of product management experience in eCommerce, DTC, or data-driven products Experience owning search, discovery, taxonomy, or information architecture systems Strong analytical skills with experience in experimentation, A/B testing, and performance measurement Proven ability to operate in complex, ambiguous environments and drive clarity and outcomes Strong prioritization and decision-making skills, with the ability to balance customer, business, and technical trade-offs Experience working cross-functionally with engineering, design, analytics and data science teams Preferred Experience improving product data quality, metadata systems, or catalog platforms Experience owning experimentation frameworks and using them to optimize product and algorithm performance Experience with AI/ML-powered products, including search, recommendations, or personalization systems Experience working with or optimizing ranking and recommendation algorithms Familiarity with semantic search, vector databases, and LLM-based systems (RAG, embeddings, evaluation) Experience with search platforms Understanding of taxonomy, ontology, or knowledge graph concepts Strong understanding of SEO as a growth channel, including technical SEO and content strategy alignment Experience in eCommerce, marketplaces, or content-rich ecosystems Key Competencies Ownership mindset with accountability for discovery performance and business outcomes Results-oriented, with a focus on delivering measurable impact through data and experimentation Strong systems thinking across search, ranking, personalization, and data layers Deep customer focus, with the ability to translate behavior and intent into product solutions Ability to navigate complexity and drive alignment across cross-functional teams Structured problem-solving and prioritization skills Commitment to building scalable, high-quality platforms and experiences What Success Looks Like Improved product findability across search, browse, and personalized experiences Measurable gains in engagement, conversion, and revenue driven by discovery High-quality, well-governed taxonomy and product data supporting scalable growth Effective experimentation culture driving continuous optimization of discovery systems Strong alignment across global and cross-brand stakeholders on scalable solutions Successful delivery of AI-driven and SEO-enabled discovery capabilities Clear ownership from strategy through execution, with measurable and sustained impact over time Ability to continuously evolve discovery systems to support new customer acquisition and emerging search behaviors *The pay range is indicative of projected hiring range, however base pay will be determined based on a candidate’s work location, skills and experience. Mattel offers competitive total pay programs, comprehensive benefits, and resources to help empower a culture where every employee can reach their full potential. additionalInformation Don’t meet every single requirement? At Mattel, we are dedicated to an inclusive workplace and a culture of belonging. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles. Join Mattel's Talent Community and start receiving exciting updates about our company, our employees, and our culture. Also, interested in signing up for job alerts? Do so here! How We Work: We are a purpose driven company aiming to empower generations to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. We live up to our purpose employing the following behaviors: We collaborate: Being a part of Mattel means being part of one team with shared values and common goals. Every person counts and working closely together always brings better results. Partnership is our process and our collective capabilities is our superpower. We innovate: At Mattel we always aim to find new and better ways to create innovative products and experiences. No matter where you work in the organization, you can always make a difference and have real impact. We welcome new ideas and value new initiatives that challenge conventional thinking. We execute: We are a performance-driven company. We strive for excellence and are focused on pursuing best-in-class outcomes. We believe in accountability and ownership and know that our people are at their best when they are empowered to create and deliver results. Who We Are: Mattel is a leading global toy and family entertainment company and owner of one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world. We engage consumers and fans through our franchise brands, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Thomas & Friends, UNO, Masters of the Universe, Matchbox, Monster High, MEGA and Polly Pocket, as well as other popular properties that we own or license in partnership with global entertainment companies. Our offerings include toys, content, consumer products, digital and live experiences. Our products are sold in collaboration with the world’s leading retail and ecommerce companies. Since its founding in 1945, Mattel is proud to be a trusted partner in empowering generations to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. Mattel’s award-winning workplace culture has been recognized by Forbes, Fast Company, Newsweek, Great Place to Work, TIME, and more. Visit us at https://jobs.mattel.com/ and www.instagram.com/MattelCareers. Mattel is an Equal Opportunity Employer where we want you to bring your authentic self to work every day. We welcome all job seekers, and all applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran and protected veteran status, disability status, and or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state or local law. Pursuant to the Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act, qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment. Videos to watch: The Culture at Mattel Corporate Philanthropy