How You’ll Contribute
The Sr. Product Manager (PM) is responsible for leading the product management efforts of a software development team, also known as a “pod”. The pod dedicated to Explorer applications is a cross-functional team comprised of the PM, a user experience designer, and several engineers who are empowered to create and maintain products that serve the needs of the Society’s grant recipients (“Explorers”) and to help fulfill its mission.
The PM is a member of the Business Operations team. Business Operations supports the design, development, and growth of a well-functioning organization to maximize the effectiveness of the Society’s work. This team provides the Society with critical support functions, including the infrastructure, systems, policies and processes that help us achieve our mission in a responsible, accountable, efficient and ethical manner.
The ideal candidate is an accomplished, outcome-driven and user-focused product manager with experience leading a team to design and deliver great digital software products.
This position reports to the Director of Product Management.
Responsibilities Include
- Lead product development to deliver value to end users while advancing the Society’s programmatic goals. Work with mission program stakeholders throughout the Society as well as internal and external users to develop a product strategy and roadmap that aligns with their ambitions and needs. (30%)
- Collaborate with other members of the pod to discover the problems, opportunities, and constraints that inform the design and architecture of a viable and valuable solution. (25%)
- Work closely with pod members to design and validate solutions that meet the needs of users. Utilize appropriate processes and techniques (prototyping, usability testing, iterative development, QA, etc.) to ensure products are usable, reliable, and feasible to deliver and maintain with the time and resources available. (25%)
- Keep up with current trends, technologies and best practices in software development and delivery. (10%)
- Collaborate with extended stakeholder group (legal, marketing, communications, finance) to ensure product viability. (10%)
Educational background
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
Minimum Years and Type of Experience
5+ years working on technology-powered products as either a product manager, product designer, engineer, data analyst, data scientist, or user researcher.
Necessary Knowledge and Skills
- Proficiency in the techniques and methods of modern product discovery and product delivery.
- Ability to engage with engineers, designers, and organization leaders in a constructive and collaborative relationship.
- Ability to figure out solutions to hard problems with many constraints, using sound judgement to assess risks, clearly articulated through well-structured, data-informed, written narratives.
- Ability to effectively share a product vision and strategy, to both motivate and inspire team members, stakeholders, and other contributors to the product’s success.
- Ability to learn multiple functional areas of business – engineering, design, finance, marketing, etc.
Desired Qualifications
- The ability to go deep on technology, data architecture, systems diagramming, APIs, and other architectural concerns.
- Experience leveraging metrics tools and data analysis skills to understand how products are actually used by users.
- Ability to anticipate problems and creatively frame and contribute to solutions.
- Comfortable and thrives working in an agile environment and can adapt to evolving priorities.
Supervision
No direct reports
We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match with the position. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.