Volunteer GenAI Product Strategist (Civic Tech) — AI Apps for Human Communication

Bridge cutting-edge generative AI capabilities with real-world public interest needs to define the product roadmap for tools that foster constructive human dialogue.

Crossing Party Lines is seeking a sharp, mission-driven GenAI Product Strategist with a background in Civic Tech to join our Apps and Agents team. We are creating a portfolio of conversational agents, role-play simulators, and reflection tools aimed at reducing affective polarization and building dialogue across deep divides. In this role, you will identify high-leverage product opportunities, balance technical feasibility with civic impact, and guide our product concepts from experimental prototypes into scalable interventions.

About the Apps and Agents Team

Our team blends emerging generative AI architectures—including multi-agent systems and conversational agents—with Crossing Party Lines’ proprietary frameworks developed through years of facilitating respectful political discourse. As we prepare an application to Y Combinator and explore deployment partnerships with civic organizations, universities, and workplaces, product strategy is essential to ensure our tools deliver measurable social utility rather than novelty.

What You’ll Do

• Define product requirements, user personas, and strategic roadmaps across our portfolio of generative AI communication tools.
• Map complex generative AI capabilities (reasoning models, dynamic prompting, multi-agent role-play, retrieval) to concrete civic and behavioral outcomes.
• Identify and mitigate the specific risks of deploying AI in public and sensitive spaces—such as algorithmic bias, epistemic bubbles, user manipulation, and privacy concerns.
• Partner with technical leads, designers, and conflict-resolution subject-matter experts to prioritize features that maximize adoption, trust, and measurable depolarization.
• Define meaningful product KPIs that balance engagement metrics with civic outcomes like cognitive empathy, active listening, and reflective thinking.
• Help shape product positioning, pilot deployment strategies, and organizational use cases for civic bodies, educational institutions, and community forums.

You May Be a Good Fit If You

• Have practical experience in product management, product strategy, or systems design within civic tech, public interest technology, or digital democracy initiatives.
• Possess a solid conceptual understanding of modern generative AI workflows, agentic architectures, and LLM behavior (no coding required, but you should know what the technology can and cannot realistically do).
• Understand the systemic nature of civic problems—including misinformation dynamics, institutional trust, and affective polarization.
• Excel at turning ambiguous, early-stage ideas into structured, actionable product specifications and user flows.
• Can navigate politically sensitive, pluralistic environments with objective neutrality, curiosity, and intellectual rigor.

What You’ll Gain

• Strategic product ownership at the intersection of emerging generative AI and high-impact civic technology.
• Leadership experience helping steer early-stage products preparing for accelerator applications (e.g., Y Combinator) and institutional pilots.
• Direct collaboration with nonprofit founders, AI engineers, behavioral researchers, and community organizers.
• Professional references and portfolio proof points highlighting your ability to lead AI product strategy in the public interest sector.

Time, location, and support

This is a remote volunteer position. You may complete most of the work on your own schedule.

We hope volunteers can contribute approximately 8 or more hours per week, although hours are flexible. Team members should also be available for one or two online team meetings per week.

You will report to Lisa Swallow, co-founder of Crossing Party Lines and lead of the Apps and Agents team. You will work closely with other volunteers and developers and will receive background information, product specifications, and access to the CPL frameworks underlying the applications.

We welcome applicants from different backgrounds, professions, political viewpoints, and lived experiences. Crossing Party Lines does not ask volunteers to agree politically. We ask them to approach differences with curiosity, respect, and a sincere desire to understand.