Product Operations Manager

As a Product Operations Manager embedded in the Software division, you belong to the functional team that increases the efficiency, effectiveness, and value-add of software R&D teams via informed coordination. You and your colleagues in Product Operations:

-Manage internal tooling, knowledge flows, process improvement, and R&D staff experience.

-Tailor information, metrics, coaching, and follow-up for multiple collaborative audiences.

-Reconcile multiple priorities and interpersonal landscapes across teams, automates repetitive steps.

You will drive the creation of new processes, tools, and working relationships-enabling success for 100+ employees and/or across more than one product portfolio in our Software R&D organization.

This role requires skillsets, experience, and competencies in:

-Execution & Coordination: Cross-team Collaboration, R&D Employee Experience, Scalable Impact

-Research & Logistics: Tech & Tooling, Feedback & Analysis

Also, note this difference in the division of labor among Product Operations and Product Management:

Product Operations

Product Management

Focus

current efficiency

future vision

Client

internal teams

paying customers

Goal

enable others

grow market share

KPIs

internal metrics

user adoption

Means

pragmatism

negotiation

• Execution & Coordination
• Cross-team Collaboration
• Cascades communications from across multiple levels, and manages institutional knowledge spanning 5+ years of "organizational archeology"
• Interfaces as liaison across teams, and often across departments (e.g., R&D, S&M)
• Follows default cadences of reporting across in typical formats, attempting to balance inclusiveness and relevance
• Understands nuances of sensitive information and is cautious re: access to need-to-know systems and contexts
• R&D Employee Experience
• Improves R&D employees' performance, facilitates onboarding and ongoing educational programs on relevant topics;
• Examines steps in our business processes, socializing them across teams for refinement and comparing them into default work instructions;
• Consults with leaders on near-term risks and needs, to head off burdens/demands on employees;
• Cultivates dozens of concurrent relationships to give voice to under-served needs and make use of opportunities to boost team loyalty/morale
• Scalable Impact
• Pilots processes, tools, and methods to boost productivity, creativity, and morale
• Streamlines recurring tasks and quantifies sources of possible waste or inefficiency
• Participates in experiments, from hackathons, to A/B tests, to user usability feedback fora, to proofs-of-concept for others' ideas
• Helps with problem discovery and enlist Product Managers to productize their solutions
• Tracks much of R&D team spending, staff development and teambuilding budgets, event (e.g., client visits to our site) and conference logistics extremely well
• Research & Logistics
• Tech & Tooling
• Documents essentially all the R&D aka Product & Engineering "stack" of various internal and 3rd-party systems, tools, documents, and utilities
• Develops intermediate understanding of select modules within (or across) product porfolios and begins growing product- and domain-specific skillsets
• Coordinates access provisions and URLs and points-of-entry to our internal systems, seeing whether internal end-users' needs are served
• Searches the information repositories and tooling at our disposal, helping employees with one-off and recurring requests
• Maintains our physical and material instruments, such as equipment, branded swag, promotional materials
• Feedback & Analysis
• Collects, organizes, and analyzes data to help R&D team make decisions
• Listens to many R&D team members to gather real-yet-anecdotal evidence of keenest needs
• Is responsive to best practices from Top Tier software R&D organizations, and participates in decisions for our operational course of action
• Strengthens multi-step feedback loops, contributing to a healthy "feedback culture"

• A "get it done" attitude coupled with a "growth mindset"
• Excels in an autonomous role, leading with clarity and intent and taking ownership of initiatives to deliver results. Proactive in managing expectations and dependable in making and meeting commitments
• Social capability to develop key relationships and communication across Engineering, Customer Success, and Software Products Leads
• Ability to context switch effectively through many areas and facets of work within a software organization
• Experience in product management tools, especially Figma, Jira, Confluence, and Trello, amongst others
• A working knowledge of our space, software applications, and other similar applications in our space
• Ability to drive change management, implement new processes and drive continual service improvements
• Responsibilities may be extended to include other areas of Product Operations / Release Management and will be expected to be able to skill-up to have a working knowledge of these areas
• A willingness to fail and learn and leverage those experiences to help others avoid the same mistakes. You welcome candid feedback and can constructively give it as well
• Knowledge and experience in beta programs, software development lifecycle, release management, and agile methodology
• 3+ years of prior work experience in a Software organization preferred
• BA/BS degree preferred