Product Discovery Manager

Nelnet•Remote - Nebraska, NE

1d•$140,000 - $150,000

About The Position

The Product Discovery Manager leads customer and market discovery activities to identify, evaluate, and validate product opportunities. The role turns ambiguous business opportunities into focused research questions, gathers customer evidence, identifies meaningful patterns, and develops recommendations for product direction. It uses discovery, research, prototyping, and experimentation to reduce uncertainty before significant product investment is made. The position partners closely with product, design, technology, commercial, business, and other stakeholders to ensure product decisions are grounded in customer needs and evidence. It also establishes scalable discovery practices, research repositories, templates, tools, and documentation to improve the quality and speed of future discovery work.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Marketing, Research, Product Management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
5+ years of experience in product discovery, user research, product management, product design, customer research, innovation, or a related discipline.
Experience independently planning and conducting customer or user discovery and translating findings into actionable recommendations.
Experience evaluating ambiguous opportunities and using evidence to influence product or business decisions.
Experience collaborating across product, design, technology, commercial, or business functions.
Skills in research and information gathering, feedback gathering and analysis, critical thinking, UX/UI design, and strategic thinking.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree or relevant professional training in user experience research, product management, design, customer research, or a related discipline.
Experience developing and testing prototypes or concepts and conducting discovery for new products, services, or business opportunities.
Familiarity with UX/UI design tools such as Figma or Adobe XD.

Responsibilities

Lead product and customer discovery activities to understand customer needs, behaviors, workflows, pain points, and unmet opportunities.
Define research questions, hypotheses, target audiences, and evidence criteria for evaluating product and business opportunities.
Recruit and engage customers, users, buyers, subject-matter experts, and other relevant participants to gather actionable insights.
Conduct interviews, workflow observations, concept testing, and other qualitative or quantitative research appropriate to the business question.
Synthesize customer and market evidence into clear themes, Jobs to Be Done, opportunity areas, product requirements, and recommendations.
Develop and test prototypes, concepts, workflows, and other representations of potential solutions to accelerate learning and reduce product risk.
Evaluate discovery findings and recommend whether opportunities should advance, change direction, or be discontinued based on available evidence.
Partner with product, design, technology, commercial, and business stakeholders to translate insights into product strategy and development priorities.
Establish scalable discovery practices, research repositories, templates, tools, and documentation that improve the quality and speed of future discovery work.
Communicate findings and recommendations clearly to stakeholders, using evidence and business context to influence decisions.