Manager, Product - Decorator Production Platform

Varsity Brands•Farmers Branch, TX

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Manager, Product Management - Decorator Production Platform owns the functional experience, product needs, and continuous-improvement priorities for Varsity Brands’ Decorator Production Platform application, a core system supporting personalization of sporting apparel and equipment. The role is the primary product representative for the application’s functionality, performance, and processes, working with business stakeholders, executive leaders, vendors, production and frontline employees, customers, and application-aligned Portfolio Product Owners. The manager identifies opportunities, clarifies business needs, negotiates priorities, and turns objectives into coordinated product initiatives. They guide initiatives from discovery through launch and adoption, remaining closely involved in discovery, requirements, prioritization, testing, release readiness, and post-launch adoption, with lighter involvement during active software development. They also maintain a continuous backlog of enhancements, customer pain points, defects, technical improvements, technical debt reduction, and operational-efficiency opportunities. The role focuses on customer experience, product outcomes, adoption, usability, operational effectiveness, and measurable outcomes such as efficiency gains, cost reduction, error reduction, and adoption; Commercial teams retain accountability for revenue and business results. The position leads and develops a team of Product Owners and/or Business Analysts. It maintains the product roadmap, coordinates dependencies across applications and teams, supports executive prioritization and governance, and uses customer research and analytics to guide decisions. It also plans and supports UAT, launch readiness, change management, adoption, post-launch evaluation, and hyper-care before transition to ongoing support.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Product Management, Marketing, Information Systems, Business Analytics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
2–5+ years of experience in Product Management, Manufacturing/Production Systems, Supply Chain, or Digital Product environments.
Previous experience as a product owner, program manager, application owner, or application lead.
At least 2 years of experience leading or managing a team, with the ability to coach, develop, and retain talent and foster accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Ability to build high-performing teams through coaching, mentoring, performance management, and career development.
Strong customer orientation and commitment to improving end-to-end digital and operational experiences.
Ability to understand business needs while accounting for enterprise and platform considerations.
Ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders without direct reporting authority.
Strong prioritization skills using customer evidence, data, strategic alignment, value, effort, risk, and dependencies.
Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and facilitation skills.
Ability to navigate ambiguity, structure complex problems, and guide groups toward clear decisions.
Strong analytical skills and ability to interpret product, customer, operational, and commercial data.
Understanding of product analytics, adoption measurement, customer feedback, conversion, utilization, and feature-performance evaluation.
Ability to conduct or support customer interviews, user research, journey mapping, surveys, usability testing, and feedback analysis.
Understanding of digital product management, discovery, roadmaps, backlogs, prioritization, and product delivery lifecycles.
Working knowledge of Agile practices, including epics, user stories, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, UAT, and release planning.
Ability to collaborate with Product, UX, Business Analysis, Engineering, Architecture, Analytics, Delivery, Operations, Sales, and Commercial teams.
Ability to understand technical concepts, system dependencies, integrations, APIs, data flows, and platform constraints sufficiently to support product decisions.
Strong organization, ownership, follow-through, and accountability; ability to manage multiple initiatives, stakeholders, dependencies, and priorities.
Ability to balance strategic transformation with smaller continuous-improvement opportunities and recognize when to escalate decisions or conflicts.
Comfort with financial statements and working knowledge of financial and accounting concepts relevant to production cost, margin, and vendor management.

Nice To Haves

Master of Business Administration preferred; standout recent graduates may be considered regardless of experience level.
Relevant experience in product management, product ownership, business strategy, digital commerce, customer experience, business analysis, operations, technology delivery, or a related discipline.
Experience working in a cross-functional or matrixed organization.
Experience with business transformation initiatives.
Experience working with business stakeholders, customers, vendors, production employees, frontline employees, product teams, and technology teams.
Experience using analytics and customer feedback to guide product decisions.
Experience supporting product launches, organizational change, training, communications, or adoption programs.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage Product Owners and/or Business Analysts responsible for the Decorator Production Platform backlog and delivery; set objectives and expectations, assess capacity, address risks, and coach team members.
Develop and maintain a thorough understanding of the platform’s processes, users, customers, vendors, operational needs, pain points, and strategic priorities; act as the primary product advocate for the application’s experience and functionality.
Translate strategies, customer needs, and operational challenges into product opportunities, prioritized initiatives, and a roadmap; evaluate value, effort, risk, dependencies, strategic alignment, and expected outcomes.
Build relationships with leadership and cross-functional partners; facilitate discussions, negotiate priorities, communicate decisions and status, and present recommendations and tradeoffs to executive management.
Partner with application-aligned Portfolio Product Owners to determine where capabilities should be delivered, incorporate needs into roadmaps and backlogs, coordinate cross-product initiatives, and escalate unresolved conflicts to the executive steering committee.
Conduct customer and user discovery using interviews, observation, surveys, journey mapping, usability testing, feedback, support data, and analytics; validate problems and maintain an organized repository of insights and opportunities.
Lead initiatives from concept through discovery, prioritization, approval, delivery, launch, and adoption; define problems, users, scope, outcomes, measures, assumptions, dependencies, risks, and constraints.
Partner with Business Analysts, UX, Portfolio Product Owners, Architecture, Engineering, and Delivery teams to clarify requirements and execution readiness; participate in discovery, requirements reviews, roadmap planning, UAT, launch readiness, and post-launch evaluation.
Plan and lead UAT, including scope, timelines, success criteria, test plans, test cases, execution, defect prioritization, and production-readiness validation.
Review proposed solutions and support creation and approval of epics, business requirements, user journeys, business rules, acceptance criteria, and measurable outcomes; participate in demonstrations and milestone reviews.
Coordinate operational process, policy, support, and customer-experience readiness for launches; identify and escalate risks, dependencies, decision gaps, and adoption barriers.
Maintain and prioritize a continuous-improvement backlog covering strategic initiatives, customer pain points, usability and experience enhancements, defects, technical improvements, operational efficiencies, analytics, process improvements, and stakeholder requests.
Define success measures and analytics requirements; monitor product, customer, adoption, operational, and commercial indicators; develop dashboards or summaries and recommend follow-up improvements based on results.
Develop adoption strategies and coordinate communications, training, enablement, support resources, pilots, phased launches, readiness reviews, and post-launch tracking with relevant teams.
Investigate low adoption or poor performance and lead corrective-action planning; ensure new capabilities transition to an ongoing support model, including hyper-care, documentation, knowledge transfer, and support expectations.
Lead through influence in a matrixed organization; align stakeholders, facilitate decisions, promote customer-centered and fact-based prioritization, and align initiatives with enterprise standards, governance, and architecture.
Recruit, onboard, develop, coach, and retain team members; set performance expectations, provide feedback and development opportunities, and foster knowledge sharing and a collaborative team culture.