Product Management Intern (Summer 2027) at Bound in Ames, IA

Job description

• At Bound, internships are a structured experience designed to give you real ownership, real mentorship, and a real project to point to when you're done.
• A Capstone Project — You will own a meaningful project from day one through the final presentation, giving you something substantial to show for your summer.
• Real Team Experience — Beyond your project, you will be embedded in your team's day-to-day work, gaining hands-on exposure to how Bound operates.
• Mentorship & Support — regular 1:1s with your supervisor and a buddy to help you navigate your summer.
• Connection — Intern events and opportunities to connect with the broader Bound team.
• Program dates — Summer 2027 internships run May 17 – August 6, 2027 (approximately 12 weeks).
• A note on timing: We're recruiting for our Summer 2027 cohort. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, with interviews and offers extending into winter/spring 2027. This role is open to students who will be enrolled in or have completed a relevant degree program as of Summer 2027 (e.g., rising juniors/seniors).
• As a Product Manager Intern, you'll spend the summer embedded in Bound's product team, getting hands-on exposure to how we decide what to build and why. Rather than shadowing from the sidelines, you'll own a real project end to end — from talking to users and digging into data, to writing specs and working directly with designers and engineers to ship something real.

Responsibilities

• Talk directly with users and customers to understand their problems and how they use Bound today
• Dig into product data and metrics to spot patterns and help prioritize what to build next
• Write clear specs and user stories that designers and engineers can build from
• Partner day-to-day with design and engineering to move a feature from idea to shipped
• Help plan and run product reviews, standups, and stakeholder updates
• Own a well-scoped project for the summer and present the outcome to the product team
• Rotate across a couple of different product areas to see how PM work varies team to team

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in an undergraduate program, any class year (any major welcome — we care more about how you think than what you studied)
• Genuine curiosity about how products get built and a track record of asking "why" before jumping to solutions
• Strong written and verbal communication — you can explain an idea clearly to both a designer and an engineer
• Comfortable working with data (spreadsheets, basic analysis) to support a decision, even without a technical background
• Able to work independently on ambiguous problems and bring structure to them
• Prior internship or project experience in product, design, engineering, or a startup environment
• Familiarity with tools like Figma, SQL, or basic analytics platforms (Amplitude, Mixpanel, etc.)
• Experience with a side project, hackathon, or student organization where you had to scope and ship something
• Basic technical fluency — you don't need to code, but you're not intimidated by a conversation with engineers

Skills

Required

• Strong written and verbal communication

Preferred

• Basic technical fluency