Lead Product Manager - AI Gateway (P4552)

8451 • Chicago, OH

4d • Onsite

About The Position

84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company that helps The Kroger Co., consumer packaged goods companies, agencies, publishers and affiliates create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers. Powered by first-party retail data from over 62 million U.S. households, 84.51° utilizes this data to enhance customer journeys through 84.51° Insights, 84.51° Loyalty Marketing, and Kroger Precision Marketing. The company operates on a 5-day in-office work schedule to foster collaboration and team connection.

The AI Enablement team focuses on building foundational AI capabilities to improve solutions and outcomes for Kroger and 84.51° shoppers and associates. The AI Gateway is a key component of this team, providing the primary AI infrastructure that supports these solutions and makes AI models accessible. As a Product Owner within this team, you will collaborate closely with the AI Gateway Product Director, Tech Leads, and cross-functional design and development teams. The Lead Product Manager is responsible for guiding the team, championing business interests, and ensuring the team's output maximizes product value. This role requires a deep understanding of business and technical value, translating business requirements into product specifications, and measuring delivered value and other key metrics. Strong organizational, communication, technical acumen, and AI domain knowledge are essential.

Requirements

• Professional work experience in artificial intelligence / Generative AI applications.
• Skilled in managing cross-functional software development teams in an agile environment.
• Skilled in managing business priorities against design/user needs while delivering against product roadmaps.
• Skilled in managing end-to-end software product development.
• Stakeholder management skills – experienced in building and managing stakeholder relationships to influence and drive change.
• Problem solving, critical thinking and analytical skills.
• Planning, organizational and time management skills.
• Comfort with ambiguity – remains confident, positive and resourceful in the face of ambiguity and unexpected results; recovers quickly from setbacks.
• Exhibits qualities of and have proven to be a great teammate.
• Verbal and written communication skills, ability to translate between business and technical.
• Technical acumen – grasps the technical details to lead a team.
• 4-6 years relevant experience.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the United States and with the Kroger Family of Companies (i.e. H1-B visa, F-1 visa (OPT), TN visa or any other non-immigrant status).

Nice To Haves

• Prior experience as a software engineer or Technical Product Manager.
• Experience deploying or working on a team that has deployed AI/ML models in cloud-based settings.
• Experience navigating corporate governance processes including Security, Cloud, Privacy, Data Sharing, and Legal.
• Experience leveraging various Generative AI chat tools (ie M365 Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) to simplify your life, work, or otherwise automate processes and accomplish previously impossible things.
• Experience developing AI Agents using an agent builder or agent framework.
• Experience developing or using MCP servers.
• Experience using coding agents (ie Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Github Copilot).

Responsibilities

• Drive business value for the team by prioritizing and ordering product backlog items based on the product roadmap, inclusive of product, engineering, UX and data science roadmaps.
• Manage multiple teams’ product backlogs in parallel, ensuring they are transparent, visible, and clearly communicated.
• Partner with cross-functional engineering, UX, and data science peers to translate business desires/requirements into effective features and stories ready for development.
• Outline clear acceptance criteria to define "done".
• Partner with external contractors or technical support to ensure the delivery of the scope of work within the agreed timeline and according to stated acceptance criteria.
• Demonstrate a deep understanding of the business domain, stakeholders, business processes, and constraints relevant to the product(s).
• Show a deep understanding of customers/users’ problems, their thought processes, operational methods, and the platforms/technology they use.
• Become familiar with new technology, business domains, and/or analytical practices that impact the product(s).
• Understand and communicate organization objectives, strategies, and solution needs to the team to facilitate results.
• Manage and communicate dependencies and risks.
• Build and manage internal and external stakeholder relationships to influence and drive change.
• Utilize product data (quantitative and qualitative) to influence product decisions and roadmaps.
• Clearly communicate the value of the work being delivered.

Benefits

• Medical: with competitive plan designs and support for self-care, wellness and mental health.
• Dental: with in-network and out-of-network benefit.
• Vision: with in-network and out-of-network benefit.
• 401(k) with Roth option and matching contribution.
• Health Savings Account with matching contribution (requires participation in qualifying medical plan).
• AD&D and supplemental insurance options to help ensure additional protection for you.
• Paid time off with flexibility to meet your life needs, including 5 weeks of vacation time, 7 health and wellness days, 3 floating holidays, as well as 6 company-paid holidays per year.
• Paid leave for maternity, paternity and family care instances.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree