Principal Product Manager (ACF - FTF)

Skylight•Washington, DC

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world. If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters. At Skylight, product managers are responsible for strategy, planning, execution, stakeholder management, and team health. Product managers partner with researchers, designers, engineers, client stakeholders, and others to inform their product decisions. At a high level, it’s the product manager’s job to figure out what to build next and why. In this role, you'll hit the ground running in a fast-moving, cross-functional environment — coordinating immediately with researchers, designers, engineers, and government stakeholders to deliver against an ambitious vision from day one. This role sits at the intersection of product strategy, change management, enablement, and service delivery, and demands someone who can orient quickly, build trust across teams, and ensure new digital capabilities are not only built, but understood, usable, and sustained.

Requirements

Has demonstrated experience leading product development from concept through launch for net-new digital tools, navigating ambiguity, defining scope, and building alignment across cross-functional stakeholders in resource-constrained environments
Experience with participatory research processes that centered people with lived experience as active collaborators in product definition, ensuring solutions reflected the real needs and priorities of the communities served
Understand lean product principles and how to apply them (e.g., minimum viable product) at various stages of the product life cycle in order to mitigate risk, validate assumptions, and amplify learning
Can develop a product strategy that is informed by an understanding of the problem to be solved, prioritizes outcomes over feature sets, and establishes the direction of the product over time (e.g., product roadmap), including success criteria
Ability to execute the product strategy by breaking down the product’s scope into usable chunks of value that can be realized sooner rather than later, creating and maintaining a prioritized backlog with validated user stories, and facilitating team ceremonies over the course of the product’s iterations
Understand how to engage in the process of human-centered design in order to better inform product direction
Ability to collaborate with folks outside of your discipline, such as researchers, designers, engineers, and others, in order to get things done
Ability to manage clients and stakeholders in a way that builds trust, alignment, and healthy environments for individuals and teams
Understand the merits of different software development methodologies (e.g., agile, lean) and how to put them into practice
Commitment to equipping federal teams with documentation, training, and mentoring so improvements last beyond the contract
Ability to work effectively in a professional services environment
Passion for improving public outcomes through great government services
A mindset and work approach that align with Skylight’s core values
All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories.
Some federal contracts require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment.
You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust or security clearance.
You may be required to complete a company background check successfully.
Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.

Nice To Haves

Background in driving user adoption and enablement, including training, change management, or service design
Demonstrated ability to support large, distributed, or operational user populations
Hands-on involvement with UAT, usability testing, or readiness assessments
Experience working with Palantir’s Foundry platform.
Prior experience working in the civic tech space
Experience working in a remote-team environment

Responsibilities

Own user adoption as a first-class product outcome, with a clear strategy, roadmap, and measures of success
Define and track adoption success across user groups using readiness, usage, confidence, and support signals
Lead onboarding, training, rollout, and UAT readiness to ensure users are prepared for each release
Identify risks to adoption early (organizational, operational, technical) and plan mitigations
Establish feedback loops from training, onboarding, and real-world use to continuously inform product decisions
Support organizational change and knowledge transfer so adoption capabilities are sustainable beyond the project
Lead a cross-functional team of researchers, designers, engineers, and subject matter experts to build and ship high-impact products and services
Translate needs from users and government partners into a product strategy, including vision, objectives, measures of success, product roadmap, and product backlog
Manage the direction, scope, and priorities of the product initiative, building from user research to minimum viable products to scalable solutions
Write user stories, prioritize stories, and build release plans
Facilitate team ceremonies such as planning meetings, stakeholder syncs, and retrospectives
Draw on data and feedback to inform the product strategy and roadmap
Work in close partnership with government teams to transfer digital skills and product knowledge throughout the course of the project
Creatively navigate bureaucratic challenges, paving the way for more intuitive processes in the future
Collaborate with government partners to ensure compatibility with existing processes and technologies

Benefits

Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
Short-term and long-term disability insurance
Life and AD&D insurance
Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
Business development / sales bonuses
Referral bonuses
Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
Dollar-for-dollar charity donation matching, up to $500 per year
Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good