Senior Product & Production Manager (Maternity Cover)

Senior Product & Production Manager (Maternity Cover)
(Part Time, Remote) Contract
Background

Conservify (Conservify.org) is an open conservation technology firm that empowers conservationists and communities to tackle environmental challenges by lowering the barrier to entry for effective conservation. Through the development of new accessible technology built to disrupt the current market, Conservify is breaking new ground in the democratization of conservation activities and data.

As part of their mission to build an “open conservation” community, Conservify launched an innovative new product called FieldKit (fieldkit.org). The product is an open-source software and hardware sensor platform that optimizes data collection and sharing from the field. The product will be low cost and easy to use, and will bridge the gap between hard science and storytelling by facilitating data storytelling through engaging visualizations and built-in connections to social media. The first of its kind in the conservation space, it has the potential to revolutionize conservation technology.

Job Description
Conservify is seeking a hands-on Senior Product and Production Manager with strong interpersonal and organizational skills to remotely lead a small seasoned team of thinkers, designers and engineers who are shaping the future of conservation technology. This is a hybrid role, requiring the chosen candidate to drive forward both FieldKit’s software and hardware product development, and also the production of FieldKit products at scale. This includes supporting FieldKit’s community manager on partner projects around the world to ensure those communities have access to FieldKit products.

The ideal candidate will be a team player and a proactive problem-solver with excellent communication and organizational skills. Switching between the minutiae of kanban board QA tickets, a high level feature priorities list or a project gantt chart doesn’t phase them. Balancing the workload of a small but ambitious team comes as second nature. They’re confident with managing the logistical challenges of production, setting and meeting tight deadlines, building strong relationships, and knowing when to double down versus pivot for success. A compassionate leader, they deftly guide the process all-the-while empowering team members to manage to own their tasks and grow professionally.

If you meet the below criteria and want to see your work impact positively on the environment, then we want to speak with you. We value a diversity of backgrounds and expertise so if you’re confident in your ability to do the job, then we encourage you to apply.

Responsibilities

MULTI-PLATFORM PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Manages product development across multiple platforms. This includes the product proper – hardware (electrical and mechanical) and firmware – as well as associated product touch points – the mobile app, the online data visualization portal, FieldKit.org (brochure and shop), open sensor library, and printed product collateral.

  • Guides feature prioritization. Quantifies value and aligns the executive team to accept new products, feature requests, bugs, and infrastructural tasks into the product roadmap. Balances internal, partner and customer needs, defining effort and impact.
  • Defines success, drives progress and flags issues.
    • Digital and print design, prototyping and development. Writes specs and acceptance criteria. Leads efficient workflow for in-house and external content, design, software development and QA teams, flagging and unblocking issues to keep up momentum.
    • Hardware design, prototyping and development. Lays out schedules for hardware design, prototyping and development. Liaises closely with the hardware engineer and QA team to drive and track progress, quality, risks and changes.
  • Effective handshake between product and customer support team. Facilitates customer support team’s input into feature prioritization. Ensures released tasks result in clear customer documentation.

HARDWARE PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

Manages the manufacturing of FieldKit’s hardware products at scale to meet the demand of orders. Interfaces with third party manufacturing houses as needed, and the fulfillment team to ensure that orders are being sent out according to priority, and FieldKit’s partner projects are well supported.

  • Hardware Manufacturing. Lays out production schedules. Liaises closely with the hardware engineer, third party manufacturing houses as needed, and QA team to drive and track progress, quality, risks and changes.
  • Order pipeline prioritization. Aligns executive team on priorities. Ensures pipeline sheet reflects these priorities, and that the fulfillment team is fulfilling orders accordingly.
  • Effective leadership. Synthesizes the brief, including goals, specifications, success metrics and mandatories. Builds strong relationships. Leads the team, facilitates smooth processes, outlines roles and responsibilities, workflow, and approval process.
  • Develops plans and tracks progress, quality, risks and changes. Creates scopes of work, schedules, estimates, and project plans, identifying resource requirements, tasks, deliverables, dependencies and assumptions. Transforms quality expectations into criteria, and creates a quality management strategy. Tracks progress and flags issues. Manages risks and tracks changes. Ensures work is on time, budget, and to agreed quality.

Scope

  • Maternity leave replacement – approx. 6 months
  • Part time: approx. 3 days per week, remote
  • Contract role
  • Starting rate: $60/hour (additional dependent on experience)
  • Position to start December 2022

Requirements

  • 4+ years proven experience managing software design and development
  • Comfortable with working alongside a remote team across multiple time zones
  • Happy to hit the ground running on a product/project with many moving pieces
  • Skilled at listening, and quickly synthesizing information into key requirements and actions
  • Knows when to ask pertinent subject matter related or technical questions in order to understand and identify the scope/schedule/budget implications
  • Experience with management software e.g. Monday.com, Jira, Trello, Smartsheet, Google docs
  • Familiarity with design software e.g. Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite

Preferred

  • Experience managing (electrical and mechanical) hardware design, development and production/manufacturing
  • Experience working on multi-platform projects and products

To apply for this position, please send a cover letter and resume to jobs@fieldkit.org.  Please reference the role to which you’re applying in your email subject.

Tagged as: Remote