Kevin Middleton

HVAC.COM (Acquired by Trane Technologies May 2024)

Senior Product Manager, Growth

2024 — Present | New York, NY

Oversee all HVAC.com features, user experiences, and operations, delivering measurable value for homeowners and internal teams on a platform with ~2M annual visits. Key accomplishments include:

• Leadership: Manage the entire site funnel, from blogs and landing pages to lead generation and sales handoff, for a high-traffic platform. Collaborate with marketing, SEO, sales operations, design, project management, and engineering to drive conversions and user engagement while building 0-to-1 lead generation tools.
• Growth Drivers: Delivered calculators (7.3% conversion rate), QuoteScore (6%), video content (3.4%), and optimized landing pages (2.3%) through targeted A/B testing, improving conversions from a baseline of 0.1%.
• Expansion: Introduced HVAC repair services, calculators, and a revamped blog, increasing site depth, user engagement, and overall platform performance.
• Strategic Impact: Leveraged testing insights, data analysis, and session-to-install metrics to guide site improvements and inform Trane’s broader brand strategies.

HURD AI

Co-founder & Product Advisor

2023 | Berkeley, CA

As a co-founder and product advisor at Hurd AI, I drove product features and priorities, working closely with customers to ensure our AI-powered tools met their needs. Hurd AI launched AI-powered educational tools designed to help students, researchers, and professionals capture, organize, and interact with their notes through transcription, summarization, and chat-based study tools. Despite achieving significant user growth post-launch, the venture was bootstrapped and ultimately paused due to funding challenges.

• AI-Powered Features: Designed and launched tools leveraging OpenAI Whisper for on-device transcription, summarization, and note organization via a Mac app. Developed a web-based chatbot allowing users to upload transcripts and documents for interactive study sessions.
• User-Driven Research: Collaborated with journalists, medical researchers, and students to understand pain points like privacy and usability. Built an offline transcription feature to ensure data privacy, while offering optional cloud-based summarization.
• Launch Leadership: Led the ProductHunt launch and marketing efforts, achieving 700% user growth post-launch. Supplemented growth with limited paid social campaigns.
• Roadmap Ownership: Set the roadmap for key features such as onboarding and new user experiences, improving usability and engagement.
• Strategic Focus: Explored funding opportunities and co-founder expansion post-launch, though ultimately paused operations due to resource constraints.

LEVER (Acquired by Employ July 2022)

Senior Product Manager, HRIS Sync Lead

2021 — 2023 | San Francisco, CA

As Senior Product Manager at Lever, I led the development of HRIS Sync, an integration designed to streamline hiring workflows for enterprise customers. My role focused on scaling product capabilities, driving user engagement, and delivering enterprise-ready features that positioned Lever for upmarket growth.

• HRIS Sync Creation & Leadership: Led a cross-functional team to develop HRIS Sync using SCIM standards, improving workflows with org chart-aware approvals, accurate user statuses, and enhanced security. Achieved a 37% engagement rate within the first quarter post-launch.
• Bulk Candidate Importer: Designed and delivered a self-serve, drag-and-drop interface for bulk candidate importing, reducing upload times from days to minutes and significantly easing support team workloads.
• Customer-Driven Discovery: Conducted extensive user and IT research to identify pain points and prioritize features, ensuring alignment with enterprise customer needs.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered with professional services, implementation, customer success, and support teams to incorporate real-time feedback into the product development process.
• Strategic Impact: Delivered enterprise-ready features that streamlined hiring processes, increased customer satisfaction, and supported Lever's upmarket positioning.

SENDOSO

Senior Product Manager, Core Platform & eGift Global Expansion

2021 | San Francisco, CA

As Senior Product Manager for Sendoso, I owned the strategy, partnerships, and internal tools for the eGift platform, driving catalog expansion, operational efficiency, and revenue growth. My work aligned the eGift platform’s capabilities with Sendoso’s broader marketplace goals, delivering scalable and impactful solutions for both customers and internal teams.

• eGift Catalog & Partnerships: Expanded the eGift catalog by 23% in the U.S. and 67% internationally through partnerships and backend enhancements. Successfully onboarded Square as a key vendor partner.
• Fraud Prevention: Implemented two-factor authentication and AI-driven fraud detection to protect eGift transactions from bot attacks and improve platform security and customer trust.
• Revenue Enablement: Introduced feature tiering to enforce plan limits, driving upsell opportunities by incentivizing customer upgrades. Improved onboarding flows to enhance platform adoption.
• Operational Efficiency: Simplified internal workflows for eGift deactivation, refunds, and swaps, reducing reliance on engineering and expediting customer support resolutions.
• Strategic Vision: Partnered with the Head of Product to align the eGift strategy with Sendoso’s marketplace vision, ensuring scalable solutions that supported business growth.

ROCKET LAWYER

Senior Product Manager, Core Product & Platform

2018 — 2021 | San Francisco, CA

As Senior Product Manager at Rocket Lawyer, I led product strategy and execution for the Platform and Legal Document teams. My work focused on expanding market reach, optimizing user engagement, and diversifying revenue streams, while advancing Rocket Lawyer’s mission to make legal services more affordable and accessible.

• Co-Branded Partner Sites: Created and launched co-branded partner sites, reaching 11.5 million users and expanding Rocket Lawyer’s presence in Europe. Delivered configurable authentication, pricing, feature gating, and site theming capabilities to support scalability and enable new enterprise partnerships.
• Revenue Growth: Increased mobile gross conversions by 5% through targeted A/B testing and strategic UX enhancements for the Legal Document product line, which accounted for 90% of U.S. revenue.
• Product Integration: Integrated Legal Documents with RocketSign, replacing a legacy signing experience to improve usability and reliability. Boosted eSign start rates by 13%, supporting future contract execution-related payments.
• Data-Driven Improvements: Achieved record-high conversion rates by developing custom analytics tools to link site performance with user behavior. Leveraged these insights to optimize site speed and checkout processes.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered with design, engineering, marketing, and leadership teams to align product strategies with business goals through workshops and planning sessions.
• Strategic Impact: Advanced market expansion, funnel optimization, and revenue diversification, aligning product initiatives with Rocket Lawyer’s long-term growth strategy.

ORACLE

Senior Product Manager, Engage, Integrations, & Social Network Expansion

2013 — 2018 | San Francisco, CA

Promoted to lead Oracle Social Cloud’s Engage product, overseeing cross-functional and international teams, including two scrum teams and three UX/UI designers. I drove platform innovation, expanded integrations, and delivered features that enhanced global reach and user engagement across Oracle’s Social Suite.

• Social Network Expansion: Doubled Oracle Social Cloud’s network coverage by integrating with LinkedIn, Instagram, Sina Weibo, and Tumblr, addressing high-priority customer needs and enhancing platform utility.
• Product Relaunch: Led a comprehensive overhaul of Oracle’s Social Engage application, launching 32 new features within 12 months based on beta testing and user feedback.
• Global Integrations: Managed cross-app and cross-cloud integrations between Oracle’s Social Suite and its Marketing, Sales, and Service Clouds. Internationalized the product across 30+ languages, increasing adoption in EMEA and APAC regions.
• Go-To-Market Execution: Collaborated with Customer Success, Marketing, and Sales teams to deliver effective product rollouts, ensuring strategic alignment and successful market penetration.