Lead Product Manager

Cox Enterprises • Atlanta, GA

1d • $111,500 - $185,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

As a Lead Product Manager for the Recon Solutions and Services release train within Cox Automotive, you will serve as a strategic driver behind the One Recon platform — a modern, unified technology hub consolidating fragmented legacy recon tools and manual processes into a single, seamless experience for Manheim auction sites and their reconditioning operations. In this role, you will set strategic direction and shape the long-term vision for aligning existing legacy processes into the One Recon platform, translating organizational objectives and deep operational insight into a prioritized, outcomes-driven roadmap. You will lead alignment across multiple teams and workstreams — partnering with release train leadership, engineering, UX, and operations — while providing coaching and mentorship to other product managers on the team. Your responsibilities will span product strategy, platform vision, cross-functional leadership, stakeholder engagement at a senior level, go-to-market planning, and the identification of transformative opportunities that advance Manheim’s reconditioning capabilities. This role demands a seasoned product leader with strong platform instincts, deep knowledge of APIs and integrations, and a proven ability to drive strategic clarity while maintaining execution accountability across a complex stakeholder landscape — ensuring the One Recon platform delivers lasting operational impact and supports Cox Automotive’s leadership in auction reconditioning services.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, Communications, or a related discipline and 6+ years of experience in product management, product ownership, or a related field.
• OR equivalent combination of education and experience (Master’s and 4+ years’ experience | PHD and 2 years’ experience)
• OR 10 years of experience
• Experience owning end-to-end product lifecycle activities, including discovery, roadmapping, backlog management, and release delivery for a software product or platform.
• Experience managing a product backlog in an Agile delivery environment, including epic decomposition, story prioritization, and sprint/PI planning.
• Experience presenting product strategy, roadmap updates, and prioritization decisions to senior leadership.
• Experience leading cross-functional alignment across matrixed stakeholder groups (Engineering, UX/Design, Architecture, Operations, etc.).
• Experience AI tools within a product management workflow (e.g., discovery synthesis, requirement drafting, prototyping, competitive analysis).

Nice To Haves

• Experience sunsetting, retiring, or consolidating a legacy software product onto a unified platform.
• Experience with automotive, auction, wholesale, retail, or vehicle reconditioning operations.
• Experience leading platform migration or process-alignment initiatives across two or more disparate systems.
• Experience using AI tooling for rapid prototyping product features.

Responsibilities

• Own the strategic vision and multi-horizon roadmap for the One Recon platform, ensuring alignment with Cox Automotive’s organizational goals and Manheim’s operational priorities.
• Define and communicate a clear platform strategy that guides prioritization decisions, investment trade-offs, and long-term capability development.
• Lead quarterly and annual planning cycles in partnership with product leadership, shaping the direction of the release train and influencing resource allocation.
• Proactively identify and champion opportunities to modernize retail recon operations, replace legacy tooling, and eliminate manual processes at scale across Manheim’s auction network.
• Drive innovation across platform capabilities, recon workflow tooling, and vendor and auction system integrations.
• Lead product discovery efforts to deeply understand the strategic and operational challenges facing auction site operators, translating insights into platform-level opportunities.
• Build and manage senior-level relationships with auction operators, operations partners, and internal stakeholders, ensuring the platform roadmap reflects both site-level needs and enterprise-wide priorities.
• Synthesize platform usage patterns, operational trends, and stakeholder feedback into strategic recommendations that inform roadmap decisions and investment priorities.
• Serve as the organizational authority on recon workflows, auction operations, and the systems and integrations that underpin the One Recon platform.
• Provide strategic oversight of delivery across the release train, ensuring engineering, UX, and architecture teams are aligned on priorities and equipped to execute with quality and speed.
• Guide the definition of work at a platform level, ensuring work is scoped to deliver maximum business value and operational impact.
• Hold accountability for the health and integrity of the product backlog, partnering with product leadership and PMs to maintain clear requirements and delivery standards.
• Remove strategic blockers and make high-impact prioritization decisions that keep the team focused and moving forward.
• Lead alignment across multiple teams and workstreams, driving a shared understanding of platform strategy, priorities, and progress among engineering, UX, operations, and product leadership.
• Represent Recon Solutions and Services in senior forums, communicating roadmap direction, platform health, and key decisions with clarity and confidence.
• Champion go-to-market readiness, including release communications, operator enablement, and documentation that drives adoption of new platform capabilities.
• Cultivate strong cross-functional partnerships across Cox Automotive to advance the One Recon platform’s role in the broader recon ecosystem.
• Mentor and coach product managers on the team, elevating their skills in product discovery, prioritization, stakeholder management, and roadmap communication.
• Model best practices in product management and help establish team norms, frameworks, and ways of working that improve consistency and quality of output.
• Act as a thought partner and sounding board for PMs navigating complex stakeholder dynamics, ambiguous problem spaces, or competing priorities.

Benefits

• Flexible vacation with pay
• Seven paid holidays
• Up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually
• Bereavement leave
• Time off to vote
• Jury duty leave
• Volunteer time off
• Military leave
• Parental leave
• Health care insurance (medical, dental, vision)
• Retirement planning (401(k))
• Paid days off (sick leave, parental leave, flexible vacation/wellness days, and/or PTO)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager