Principal Product Manager

F5•Seattle, WA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Principal of Product Management, is responsible for expanding BIG-IP to new AI use cases and work cross-functionally across the broader BIG-IP team and product management team. Success in this role will require insight into market trends, customer needs, and understanding how BIG-IP can be applied to novel technical challenges along with partners as part of a full solution (e.g., AI Data Delivery, AI Enterprise Firewall, Top of Rack hardware). Analysis will include competitive positioning for BIG-IP and What it takes to win, market and business performance signals for forecasting 1 & 5 year business performance. In addition, this role will be responsible for driving intra and inter BIG-IP product management alignment with key stake holders (e.g., product management, engineering and other functions). You will work collaboratively and drive strategic alignment within the organization. You must have the ability to communicate effectively with F5 product teams, F5 customers, and F5 partners. Your team will develop strategic initiatives using a balance of future vision, near-term opportunities, customer requirements, business expertise, and expression of day-to-day product issues. The position is dynamic and multifaceted: success will be driven by becoming comfortable with frequent multi-tasking among technical, business, strategic and planning activities.

Requirements

Strong customer orientation with the ability to listen, organize and champion key initiatives and projects for product/solution development
Experience identifying, evaluating and analyzing critical strategic questions and business situations
Outstanding record of sound business judgment and advice to senior leaders
Highly focused on execution and delivering high-quality, synthesized analysis
Effectively manage and prioritize multiple work streams through collaboration within Business Strategy team and across the organization
Demonstrates leadership and the ability to influence by initiating partnerships that promote organizational objectives and change
Strong written and oral communication skills, with ability to articulate complex technology clearly
Flexible, self-motivated, collaborative
Ability to work independently or lead others on projects
Excellent leadership, interpersonal & persuasion skills
BA/BS degree in relevant field required, MBA or Consulting experience required
12+ years of experience in product management or equivalent is a must
Understanding of load balancing in data center network architecture
Skills Advanced Modeling with Excel
Communications: Story lining and Storytelling in PowerPoint with Think-cell or 6-page narratives
Deep structured interviews

Responsibilities

Create business case, PRFAQ and PRDs for new BIG-IP initiatives, particularly for those in AI, enabled by AI tooling to go from research to initiative within days vs months.
Independently lead large projects (individual or with cross-functional team) to develop a factbase and set of recommendations to provide into a strategic question or business problem (e.g., new product entry)
Apply an 80/20 approach to create structured models leveraging data from across sources (e.g., Capital IQ, 3rd party analyst insights, survey data) for 1 & 5 year financial planning
Use appropriate story lining and storytelling techniques to communicate recommendations or insights to an identified audience (e.g., the Board, the CEO or Executive Leadership team, Product Management leadership, or broad set of employees)
Apply business acumen to synthesize findings to develop strategic recommendations
Establish external relationships with industry analysts to build F5 credibility
Support and coach Product Management leaders to test prospective F5 strategies
Influence without authority to ensure strategic recommendations are executed by the business
Proactively identify and manage impact of insights to broader organization, including development and presentation of a strategic point of view, goals, and proposed outcomes
Facilitate large scale meetings and workshops, including preparation and driving tangible outcomes
Assist senior business executives in framing, evaluating, and executing against strategic options
Direct and manage team members to successfully complete product line/program strategy, establish measurable goals and objectives that meet strategic goals
Formulate innovative use of F5 product functions and open-source software tools to solve operational problems faced by F5 Customers.
Develop timely market insights including competitive analysis and user insights for informed decision making to drive product strategies and ensure product market fit.
Participate in product innovation projects and proof-of-concept initiatives, including research of product requirements to facilitate proactive maintenance and/or outage mitigation.
Partner with marketing, engineering, services, sales, and customers to drive product direction for F5’s products, including Buy, Build, or Partner solution delivery.