Position and Duties:

We are looking for an experienced professional to lead development of an easy-to-use digital experience for over 300,000 households who receive the City of San José’s garbage and recycling services.

The Product Strategist will play a key role in building out the City of San Jose’s digital services portfolio, transforming the City’s services to be easy to find and easy to use.

The City of San José has made a commitment to modernizing our residents’ experience of garbage and recycling services, including tasks such as:

  • Requesting garbage and recycling service after moving into a new residence
  • Reporting a missed garbage or recycling pick-up
  • Seeking repair or replacement for a broken cart

As the product strategist, you’ll develop the vision and strategy for recycling and garbage digital services, and oversee its implementation including managing consultant and vendor services. You will be a champion for user needs, using data and user research to inform City’s strategy.

You will work with a high degree of autonomy, reporting to the Digital Services Lead in the Office of Civic Innovation, while working in close partnership with key staff in the Environmental Services Department, and other stakeholders both internal and external to the City of San José.

The Product Strategist’s key responsibilities include the following:

  •    Engage stakeholders and lead user research to define product vision and delivery approach.
  •    Manage and coordinate user research consultants and software development vendors to implement the product vision
  •    Communicate and coordinate with internal and external stakeholders throughout the process
  •    Flag potential risks early and work with internal team, vendor team, and stakeholders to mitigate risks
  •    Prepare product-level budget estimates, documentation and roadmaps; write for requests for proposals.

This is an overstrength position with the City Manager’s Office with funding approved through June 30, 2020. Pending budget approval for the next fiscal year, this position may be extended through June 30, 2021

Minimum Qualifications:

  •    Education: Completion of a Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university in engineering, business administration or related field.
  •    Experience: At least four (4) years of professional level analytic and/or administrative experience.
  •    Employment Eligibility: Federal law requires all employees to provide verification of their eligibility to work in this country. Please be informed that the City of San José will NOT sponsor, represent, or sign any documents related to visa applications/transfers for H1B or any other type of visa which requires an employer application.

Desired Qualifications:

  •    Experience redesigning web-based services, or transactions, to be simple, beautiful, and easy to use.
  •    Experience working within Agile teams and incorporating user testing & feedback into agile processes.
  •    Strong technical understanding of modern web product development.
  •    Demonstrable and practical experience, in public or private sector, reimagining business processes and systems to deliver improved user experience and cost savings.
  •    Ability to create diagrams, sketches, and wireframes to communicate features to clients, designers and developers.
  •    Experience developing metrics to monitor the success of products, and extracting insights from data to inform product decisions.
  •    Ability to anticipate problems and take a proactive approach to resolving difficulties
  •    Experience driving decisions in multiple stakeholder environments
  •    Experience working autonomously with little direction/supervision

Salary Range:

$85,000 to $130,000 USD