Manager, Product - Decorator Production Platform

Varsity Brands•Farmers Branch, TX

3d•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 for teams, players, and fans. The role serves as the primary product representative for the application’s functionality, performance, and processes, partnering with stakeholders across the business, executive leadership, vendors, production facilities, frontline teams, customers, and application-aligned Portfolio Product Owners. The manager guides initiatives from discovery through launch and adoption, staying actively involved in discovery, requirements, prioritization, testing, release readiness, and post-launch adoption while maintaining lighter involvement during active software development. The role owns a continuous backlog of enhancements, customer pain points, defects, technical improvements, technical debt reduction, and operational-efficiency opportunities. It 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 and works through influence in a matrixed organization. It aligns platform priorities with business needs and enterprise product strategies, coordinates dependencies across applications and delivery teams, and escalates unresolved conflicts to the executive steering committee. The role also defines product success measures, uses analytics and customer feedback to guide decisions, coordinates change management and adoption, and supports launches through hyper-care and transition to ongoing support. Location: Hybrid - Farmers Branch, TX.

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.
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 engaged, 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, and 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 move groups toward clear decisions.
Strong analytical skills and ability to interpret product, customer, operational, and commercial data, including product analytics, adoption, customer feedback, conversion, utilization, and feature performance.
Ability to conduct or support customer interviews, user research, journey mapping, surveys, usability testing, and feedback analysis.
Understanding of digital product management, product 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 across 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 organizational skills, ownership, follow-through, and accountability; ability to manage multiple initiatives, stakeholders, dependencies, and priorities simultaneously.
Ability to balance strategic transformation work with smaller continuous-improvement opportunities and recognize when decisions or conflicts should be escalated.
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 will 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, expectations, and measurable outcomes, manage capacity and risks, and coach and develop team members.
Develop a comprehensive understanding of the platform’s processes, users, customers, vendors, operational needs, pain points, and strategic priorities; advocate for the application’s overall experience and functionality.
Translate strategy, customer needs, and operational challenges into product opportunities, prioritized initiatives, and a roadmap covering major initiatives, experience improvements, capability gaps, and cross-application dependencies.
Partner with business stakeholders and executive management to define priorities and obtain approval for major roadmap decisions; communicate tradeoffs and escalate unresolved conflicts to the executive steering committee.
Collaborate with application-aligned Portfolio Product Owners to identify which applications, platforms, or services should deliver capabilities, incorporate requirements into roadmaps and backlogs, and coordinate cross-product initiatives and dependencies.
Conduct customer, user, vendor, production-facility, and frontline discovery using interviews, observation, surveys, journey mapping, usability testing, feedback sessions, support data, and analytics; validate opportunities and maintain an organized repository of insights.
Lead initiatives from concept through discovery, prioritization, approval, delivery, launch, and adoption; define problems, target users, outcomes, scope, success measures, assumptions, dependencies, risks, and constraints.
Partner with Business Analysts, UX, Portfolio Product Owners, Architecture, Engineering, Delivery, and business teams to establish requirements and execution readiness, including epics, business requirements, user journeys, business rules, and acceptance criteria.
Lead UAT planning and execution, coordinate test plans and cases, track defects, prioritize fixes, validate results, and confirm production readiness before release.
Stay available during development to clarify priorities, answer business questions, review material scope changes, and resolve escalated decisions; participate in demonstrations and milestone reviews without owning engineering delivery dates or day-to-day development execution.
Create, maintain, and prioritize a continuous-improvement backlog spanning strategic initiatives, customer pain points, usability and experience enhancements, defects, technical improvements, operational efficiencies, analytics needs, process improvements, and stakeholder requests.
Define success measures and analytics requirements; monitor product, customer, operational, adoption, and commercial indicators; develop dashboards, scorecards, or performance summaries and recommend follow-up improvements based on results.
Develop adoption strategies and coordinate launch readiness with Commercial, Sales, Marketing, Training, Customer Service, Operations, Production, IT, and other teams; support communications, training, enablement, pilots, phased launches, and readiness reviews.
Track post-launch adoption, utilization, customer response, operational impact, and support needs; investigate low adoption or poor performance, lead corrective-action planning, and ensure capabilities transition to an effective ongoing support model.
Lead hyper-care immediately following deployment and coordinate a structured handoff to the ongoing support team, including documentation, knowledge transfer, and support expectations.
Lead cross-functional alignment through influence, facilitate discovery and decision-making sessions, communicate complex topics in business language, and align initiatives with enterprise product standards, governance, and architectural direction.
Recruit, onboard, develop, coach, and retain Product Owners and/or Business Analysts; set performance expectations, support career development, foster knowledge sharing, and build an engaged, collaborative team culture.