Product Manager, Higher Education Discipline Product- Computing

Cengage Group • Virtual US OH, OH

10d • $77,100 - $100,200

About The Position

Cengage is seeking a Product Manager to lead discipline-specialized product clusters across Higher Education’s Computing portfolios. The role uses a user-centric, data-driven approach to create learning products for students, instructors, and institutions, working with editorial, marketing, engineering, and user experience partners to understand the market, identify product opportunities, and deliver measurable outcomes.

The Product Manager is responsible for the strategic development and innovation of digital learning experiences in the assigned market. Within Cengage’s established product operating model, the role connects business strategy, customer needs, market dynamics, and technology delivery. The Product Manager defines priorities, leads discovery and delivery for high-impact opportunities, and improves adoption, retention, learner success, and instructor satisfaction.

The role supports growth and differentiation in higher education and applies data, experimentation, and GenAI-enabled practices where appropriate to improve product impact. Success includes improving platform adoption and usage, reducing churn, improving instructor satisfaction and student engagement, supporting learner success and career readiness, and delivering accessible, intuitive, scalable experiences.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• 3–5 years of experience in Product Management.
• Strong technical fluency in computing and IT, including experience translating requirements for virtual labs, cloud environments, and introductory and sophisticated computing into product solutions.
• Demonstrated experience working on technology-powered products, digital learning products, or product-adjacent work such as product operations, UX, analytics, content strategy, engineering, or business analysis.
• Evidence of understanding modern approaches to product management.
• Experience using customer insights, market research, and data analysis to advise product decisions.
• Ability to lead high-profile, sophisticated fields and initiatives, with strong communication and stakeholder management across organizational levels.
• Strong analytical and critical-thinking skills, with a data-informed approach to prioritization and trade-offs.
• Ability to lead execution for a product feature area, capability set, or market-specific initiative.
• Experience working with third-party partners to develop, maintain, and evolve critical digital solutions and/or specific resources.
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, including the ability to explain customer problems, product decisions, and business impact clearly.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and commitment to continuous learning.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in higher education, edtech, digital learning platforms, courseware, assessment, or instructional technology.
• Experience working with instructors, students, academic departments, institutions, or education-focused sales and customer success teams.
• Familiarity with the Higher Education market and career-connected learning.
• Experience with product analytics, experimentation, adoption metrics, retention analysis, or churn reduction.
• Familiarity with agile methodologies and product operating models.
• Experience working on platform-based products, learning management integrations, content-enabled software, or data-driven digital experiences.
• Understanding of accessibility, inclusive design, and usability best practices.
• Experience applying GenAI or automation to improve product workflows, discovery, delivery, or customer experiences.

Responsibilities

• Own product strategy, discovery, and roadmap priorities for the Higher Education Computing discipline cluster.
• Develop a deep understanding of instructors’, students’, and institutions’ needs in the assigned market.
• Translate customer insights, business priorities, market trends, and platform capabilities into prioritized near-, medium-, and long-term product opportunities and solutions.
• Apply Cengage’s Digital Product pillars of Career Readiness, Learning Outcomes, and Radical Simplicity in product decisions.
• Lead continuous product discovery through user research, usability testing, analytics, experimentation, and collaborator feedback.
• Partner cross-functionally to deliver high-impact product improvements.
• Prioritize initiatives that improve adoption, engagement, success, and retention across Cengage Learning Platforms.
• Define and oversee success metrics, using data to guide prioritization, iteration, and product performance decisions.
• Deliver simple, intuitive, and scalable product experiences that balance customer value, business impact, speed, and technical feasibility.
• Represent the customer voice in planning, prioritization, and delivery discussions.
• Collaborate with marketing, sales, and customer-facing teams to support successful go-to-market execution.
• Drive fast, iterative delivery and continuous improvement using modern product management practices and GenAI-enabled approaches where appropriate.
• Build collaborative relationships across teams and contribute to a culture of innovation, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
• Increase adoption and active usage of Cengage Learning Platforms in the assigned discipline cluster and reduce customer churn by addressing instructor and student pain points.
• Improve instructor satisfaction and student engagement through simpler, more effective learning experiences, and strengthen measurable evidence of learner success and career readiness.
• Keep pace with curriculum changes and opportunities, including AI integration and formal AI curriculum development across discipline clusters.
• Use iterative releases, experimentation, product analytics, customer feedback, and market insights to improve delivery speed, usability, accessibility, and workflow simplicity.
• Strengthen collaboration across product, engineering, design, editorial, marketing, sales, and customer success teams.
• Apply GenAI and operational standards to improve team efficiency, product quality, and customer impact.

Benefits

• Eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program; 5% annual individual target (not guaranteed).
• Comprehensive Total Rewards package; details are referenced through Cengage’s Total Rewards Philosophy.

What This Job Offers

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