Product Technology Operations Manager

Cengage Group•Virtual US OH, OH

3d•$81,600 - $141,800

About The Position

The Product Technology Operations Manager will serve as a dedicated operations partner to the SVP, Product Technology and the Product Technology VP leadership group across Higher Education, School, Work, Core Platforms, and Content Operations. This role reports through the Enterprise Portfolio Management Organization while being embedded with and passionate about the Product Technology organization. Product Technology is a large, complex organization of approximately 200 employees, 600 contractors, and more than $80M in annual cash spend. The Operations Manager will help build operational rigor, transparency, and coordination across Product Technology by managing core operating rhythms, improving data quality, supporting financial and vendor workflows, and enabling stronger leadership decision-making. This is a hands-on operations role for someone who is highly organized, analytically strong, comfortable with senior leaders, and able to drive follow-through across a matrixed environment.

Requirements

More than 10 years of experience in technology operations, business operations, program management, product operations, or a related area.
Experience supporting senior technology, product, engineering, digital, or operations leadership teams.
Demonstrated ability to manage complex operating cadences, governance routines, dashboards, data quality processes, and cross-functional workflows.
Experience handling financial, workforce, vendor, contractor, or portfolio data within a technology organization.
Strong analytical skills with the ability to convert operational data into insights, risks, and decision-ready recommendations.
Excellent collaborator management skills, including the ability to work across senior leaders, Finance, Procurement, Program Management, Product Management, and Technology teams.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to build clear executive-ready materials.
High attention to detail and ability to maintain accurate data across multiple systems and collaborator groups.
Ability to influence, clarify ownership, and drive follow-through without direct authority.
Good judgment, integrity, and discretion when handling sensitive workforce, vendor, contractor, financial, and leadership information.

Nice To Haves

Experience in EdTech, SaaS, digital learning platforms, enterprise technology, or large-scale product technology organizations.
Familiarity with product operating models, Agile delivery environments, and portfolio governance.
Experience with Smartsheet, Jira, Confluence, SharePoint, Power BI, Excel, PowerPoint, or similar operational and reporting tools.
Experience supporting CapEx/Opex tracking, contractor/vendor management, SOW processes, or technology financial operations.
Experience improving manual reporting processes through automation, dashboarding, or live-data reporting.
Experience working in a matrixed organization with distributed product, engineering, platform, and operations teams.

Responsibilities

Manage Product Technology Operating Cadences: Collaborate with the SVP, Product Technology and VP leadership group to develop and sustain regular operating rhythms, leadership forums, planning cycles, retrospectives, and governance routines. Maintain a coordinated Product Technology operating calendar that links leadership meetings, financial planning cycles, vendor cadences, roster updates, reporting timelines, and Digital/EPMO governance routines. Prepare and improve meeting templates, agendas, leadership materials, decision logs, and action trackers. Capture key decisions, risks, dependencies, and follow-up actions from operating forums, ensuring clear ownership and timely closure. Collaborate with Product Management Operations, Program Management, Digital Leadership, and EPMO to synchronize Product Technology activities with wider portfolio and governance procedures.
Own Resource, Roster, and Organizational Data Quality: Own day-to-day management, governance, and data quality for Product Technology roster and organizational information in Smartsheet or related systems. Collaborate with Product Technology leaders to verify employee, contractor, vendor, and team structure data. Define and sustain data definitions, refresh schedules, quality assessments, and source-of-truth procedures for roster and resource information. Identify and address inconsistencies across roster, vendor, financial, and portfolio data in collaboration with the relevant owners. Produce reporting and insights related to workforce composition, contractor mix, vendor utilization, resource concentration, and organizational capacity.
Assist Financial and Vendor Operations: Collaborate with Finance, Procurement, EPMO, and Product Technology leaders to assist with budgeting, spend tracking, financial planning, CapEx/Opex mapping, and resource reporting. Prepare and validate operational inputs related to labor, contractors, vendors, and initiative-aligned costs. Coordinate operational follow-up for purchase orders, statements of work, invoice questions, vendor engagements, and related workflow dependencies. Support vendor performance cadences, contractor management processes, critical metric reviews, and operational governance. Track vendor-related actions, decisions, resource updates, and non-billable resource management.
Deliver Dashboards, Reporting, and Operational Insights: Own the production and continuous improvement of Product Technology dashboards, operational metrics, and leadership reporting. Partner with collaborators to define the right metrics, reporting taxonomy, source systems, refresh cadence, and ownership model for key operational data. Convert workforce, vendor, financial, capacity, and portfolio data into clear insights, risks, and recommendations ready for decision-making. Reduce manual reporting effort by improving process rigor, data reliability, automation opportunities, and dashboard usability.
Improve Processes, Documentation, and Knowledge Management: Maintain Product Technology operational artifacts, templates, dashboards, decision records, collaboration spaces, and knowledge repositories. Build lightweight SOPs, playbooks, and ownership frameworks for recurring operational processes. Promote alignment throughout Product Technology VP sectors while accommodating relevant functional variations. Support onboarding of collaborators to core operating tools, reporting routines, repositories, and templates. Ensure documentation and collaboration spaces have clear ownership, version control, access management, and archival practices.
Strengthen Cross-Functional Execution: Act as a reliable operational collaborator for Product Technology leaders. Serve as a central link among Product Technology, Product Management Operations, Program Management, Finance, Procurement, Digital Leadership, and EPMO. Clarify ownership, improve handoffs, reduce ambiguity, and strengthen follow-through across cross-functional workflows. Advance issues, risks, or data inconsistencies that could impact financial accuracy, vendor management, portfolio visibility, or leadership decision-making.