Senior Product Manager — AI Learning & Games

NavGurukul · AI Learning Labs

Remote (India / Diaspora)  ·  30% travel  ·  Full-time

⏱ 5–8 Years of Experience

The brief

Here is the design problem we are trying to solve.

A Class 9 student in rural Muzaffarpur has intermittent internet, a low-end Android device, limited English, and has never had a teacher who had time to explain the same concept three different ways. She is not a struggling learner. She is a learner who was never given the right tools.

Now imagine building an AI-powered learning experience for her — one that feels less like a textbook and more like a game she wants to come back to. One that speaks her language, literally and figuratively. One that adapts to how she thinks, not how a standardised curriculum assumes she should think. One that works offline, on her phone, without a cloud subscription.

The danger we are designing against is real: it is entirely possible to build something engaging that teaches nothing. A game that holds attention but does not build understanding. An AI tutor that feels helpful but does not change what a learner can actually do. We are not building for engagement. We are building for learning — and that distinction is everything.

That is what we are building. And we need someone who has actually shipped a game, understands learning science, and can hold both without letting either one compromise the other.

What we are building and why

Join us in building AI-powered learning for India at scale.

Imagine a future where India’s 248 million students have access to personalised learning experiences tailored to how they learn, not how a standardised curriculum assumes they should. Government platforms like DIKSHA, UPI, and Aadhaar have shown us that transformative technology can reach national scale when built with intention and adopted by the state. The opportunity to do this for learning is vast, and it is happening now.

But here is the catch: learning is not like UPI. A transaction works the same way whether you are in Delhi or Dharwad. Learning, though, is radically different. A Class 9 student grasping algebra needs something entirely different from someone learning music, from an adult upskilling, from a rural learner in Muzaffarpur with intermittent connectivity. No single application solves this. The education system has known this for decades and done almost nothing about it.

So we are taking a different approach: building focused, context-specific applications, each pedagogically grounded and proven to deliver real impact before we scale. A tool for foundational maths. One for vocational skills. One designed around how a first-generation learner actually engages. AI is what makes this feasible at pace — it personalises within each context and dramatically shortens our development cycles.

This is Bharat tech at its finest: problem-first, people-centred, and built for the billions.

What this role is

We are looking for a Senior Product Manager who sits at the intersection of three things: learning science, game design, and AI. Not someone who dabbles in all three — someone who holds all three as serious disciplines and knows how to make them work together.

Learning science is the non-negotiable. Every product decision — how a concept is introduced, when feedback is given, how difficulty scales, what a learner does when they are stuck — must be grounded in how people actually learn. Game design and AI are the tools we use to make that learning rigorous, accessible, and genuinely engaging for learners who have never had a product built for them. The sequence matters: learning outcomes first, everything else in service of that.

AI/ML is the engine of everything we build. You do not need to train models. You do need to prototype with AI tools, deeply understand what LLMs and voice models can and cannot do, and make product decisions grounded in how the technology actually behaves — not how a demo makes it look.

You will shape the product vision for our AI learning tools — voice-first tutors, game-based skill builders, adaptive assessments, AI interviewers — working within priorities set at the org level and collaborating closely with AI/ML engineers, learning designers, and leadership. You will own the how: the experience, the interaction design, the quality of what ships, and the learning outcomes it drives.

This is a senior individual contributor role. The right person grows into Head of Product as the team scales.

What you will be doing

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  Shape the product vision for NavGurukul’s AI learning tools — bring learner insight, learning science, and game design thinking into every conversation about what gets built and how.

  
  


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  Hold learning outcomes as the non-negotiable constraint. Every design decision — loop structure, feedback timing, difficulty progression, interaction model — gets evaluated first by whether it serves learning, then by whether it is engaging.

  
  


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  Apply game design thinking in service of learning science: core loop design, progression systems, mastery arcs, and the feeling of genuine improvement — not engagement for its own sake.

  
  


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  Work with AI/ML engineers to define what the AI needs to do to support real learning — Socratic questioning, adaptive difficulty, contextual feedback — and specify that clearly enough that engineers can build it.

  
  


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  Prototype with AI: use LLM APIs, voice tools, and no-code/low-code AI tooling to sketch interactions quickly, test learning hypotheses, and validate ideas before engineering commits to them.

  
  


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  Design for the constraint: offline-first, voice-first, low-end devices, vernacular languages. The constraint is not the problem — it is the design brief.

  
  


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  Run user research with first-generation learners in low-literacy, low-connectivity contexts. Let that research reshape the product, not just validate it.

  
  


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  Define and track learning outcome metrics — mastery, confidence, retention, transfer — and build the measurement framework to know whether what we shipped actually worked.

  
  


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  Write crisp, unambiguous specs that engineers and learning designers can both act on.

  
  

What we are looking for

Two hard filters — please read both

First: you must have shipped at least one game. Not a gamified feature. Not points and badges bolted onto an existing product. An actual game — with a core loop, progression, and players who chose to keep playing. It does not have to be a commercial hit. It has to be real.

Second: you must be able to talk about that game — or any product you have built — in terms of what people learned or got better at, not just how long they stayed. If your instinct is to lead with retention and DAUs rather than learning gain and skill transfer, this is probably not the right role. We care deeply about engagement, but only because engagement is what makes learning possible — not as an end in itself.

If you have not shipped a game, or if learning outcomes have not been central to how you think about product success, this role is not the right fit. We have other product roles that may be.

Beyond that, we are looking for

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  5–8 years of product experience, with a clear arc from shipping to influencing product direction in collaboration with leadership.

  
  


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  Genuine familiarity with learning science — spaced repetition, retrieval practice, worked examples, cognitive load, formative feedback. You do not need a PhD, but you need to have engaged with this seriously.

  
  


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  Comfort working in an environment where strategic priorities are set at the org level — and the value you add is depth of craft, learner insight, and execution quality.

  
  


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  Hands-on comfort with AI tools: you prototype with LLM APIs, you have built something with voice or conversational AI, you know where the seams are between what AI can do reliably and where it falls apart.

  
  


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  Experience designing for voice-first or conversational interactions — you think naturally in flows that do not start with a text field or a screen tap.

  
  


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  User research experience in non-standard contexts — you know how to get signal from users who are not used to giving structured feedback.

  
  


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  Clear, sharp communication — a one-pager from you should align engineers, learning designers, and leadership in the same room.

  
  

Bonus

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  Formal or self-directed study in learning science, cognitive psychology, instructional design, or education research.

  
  


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  Prior experience in EdTech or learning science-informed products.

  
  


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  Familiarity with vernacular-language or low-resource user contexts — Tier 2/3/4 India, low-literacy users, first-generation learners.

  
  


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  Experience working at or with a nonprofit, social enterprise, or mission-driven startup.

  
  

Why join NavGurukul?

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  A design brief that does not exist anywhere else: learning science as the foundation, game design and AI as the tools, and learners who have never had a product built for them as the audience.

  
  


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  Ownership of the craft — the experience, the interaction design, the learning outcomes. You are the person who makes sure what ships actually works.

  
  


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  AI as your core building material — not a feature you are adding, but the foundation of everything you ship.

  
  


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  A place to belong: paid Vipassana breaks, 26 paid learning Saturdays a year, and a community that genuinely invests in your growth.

  
  


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  A clear path to Head of Product as the team and impact scale.

  
  


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  Purpose Over Pay — As a nonprofit, our salaries are below corporate benchmarks. But what we offer in return is immense purpose, autonomy, and the chance to work with passionate, mission-driven people.

  
  

When you apply, tell us

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  Tell us about the game you shipped. What was the core loop? What kept players coming back? And critically — what did players learn or get better at, and how did you know?

  
  


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  Describe a product decision you made that was grounded in learning science. What principle were you applying, and what was the outcome?

  
  


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  Describe a time you used AI tools to prototype or validate a product idea. What did you build and what did you learn?

  
  


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  What draws you to this role specifically, at this point in your life?

  
  


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  How soon can you join if selected?