Program Manager, Inventory Strategy and Ops

Compass•Madison, NJ

19h•Hybrid

About The Position

At Compass, our mission is to help everyone find their place in the world. Founded in 2012, we’re revolutionizing the real estate industry with our end-to-end platform that empowers residential real estate agents to deliver exceptional service to seller and buyer clients. Compass International Holdings is seeking a Lead, Inventory Product, Data & Ops to make sure our inventory products work as promised across all ten brands, and to rebuild how that work gets done with AI. You will report to the Director, Inventory Product, Data & Ops. This team owns the technical and operational backbone of listing distribution: when a listing moves from an agent to the MLS, our agent platform, our brand websites, and portals, we make sure it happens correctly, on time, and per the seller's instructions. The Director sets roadmap priorities and MLS strategy. You own the operating engine underneath it: testing and validating what ships, helping build the AI systems that run our daily processes, keeping our reporting accurate, and keeping every workstream documented, tracked, and organized. This is a hybrid seat. You understand the business well enough to know what matters to an agent and a seller, and the technology well enough to sit with Product and Engineering, read a spec, and see where it will break. You are AI-first by default. Not someone who only uses AI to move faster on their own work, but someone who builds, stress tests, and deploys AI systems. Every inventory program Compass International Holdings runs depends on the product doing what we told agents and clients it would do. This role is how we know it does. It is also how a small team operates at national scale: by letting AI run the work that used to take people, and freeing leadership to focus on where the product and the MLS landscape go next.

Requirements

4+ years in product operations, business or technical operations, QA, strategy and operations, or a similar role in a technology-driven environment
A true hybrid of business and technical: you can explain a product issue's impact to a brand leader and walk an engineer through reproduction steps in the same afternoon
Composure and credibility in high-stakes conversations with agents and sales leaders, including delivering bad news, pushing back when needed, and keeping the relationship strong
Hands-on experience vibe coding, stress testing, and deploying AI automations that run in production and that other people depend on (e.g., LLM APIs, agentic workflows, workflow platforms like n8n, Zapier, Make, or Workato, or Python scripting), with specific examples of processes you handed to AI and how you kept them accurate
Experience designing and running structured QA or UAT programs: test plans, scenario coverage, defect tracking, and readouts
Fluency in how product teams work: reading PRDs and technical specs, understanding APIs and data feeds conceptually, working in Jira or similar tools, and navigating release cycles
Experience directing offshore or vendor teams, including writing clear instructions and holding a quality bar
Strong data skills: SQL, advanced spreadsheets, and a BI tool such as Looker or Tableau
A systems thinker who documents while building and designs for the failure case, not just the happy path
Experience rolling out new workflows to operational teams and getting them adopted, not just launched
Sound judgment with sensitive data in a regulated environment, including knowing when to bring in Legal or Compliance before building
Exceptionally organized and detail oriented, with a track record of building documentation and trackers that teams and cross-functional partners rely on; comfortable with ambiguity and able to execute independently

Nice To Haves

Real estate brokerage, MLS, listing syndication, or proptech experience is a strong plus
Familiarity with listing data standards and feeds (e.g., RESO, IDX) is a plus

Responsibilities

Own day-to-day execution of QA testing and quality validation (including secret shopping) for inventory products across the MLS, agent platform, brand websites, and portals
Build and maintain standard testing practices: test plans, scenario libraries, pass/fail criteria, defect severity levels, and readout templates, so every test runs the same way no matter who runs it
Coordinate offshore testing teams: scope the work, write clear test instructions, set turnaround expectations, and review output against a quality bar
Partner with Product and Engineering as new features approach release; read requirements, map the scenarios and edge cases that need coverage (by brand, market, MLS rule set, listing status, and seller instruction), and get tests designed before launch rather than after
Organize test readouts: synthesize results, prioritize defects by business impact, and bring a clear recommendation to the Director, Product, and brand stakeholders
Track defects to resolution and confirm fixes in production through regression testing
Apply AI to testing itself, from generating scenario coverage off a requirements doc to automating repeatable checks and secret shopping
Support technical readiness for new launches by validating that products work as expected before they reach agents
Be the team's system of record: keep test plans, results, defects, automations, SOPs, and decisions documented, current, and easy to find
Build and maintain the trackers the team runs on (testing cycles, automation builds, open issues, requests, and cross-functional commitments) so status is always visible without anyone having to ask
Organize every cross-functional interaction with Product, Engineering, Data & Analytics, offshore teams, and brand stakeholders: notes, decisions, action items, owners, and due dates, with follow-through until each item is closed
Document every automation so others can understand, audit, maintain, and improve it
Keep a clean record of product behavior, known issues, and MLS rule interpretations so answers never live in one person's head
Set documentation and tracking standards for the team, so the Director and partners can get full context fast
Help build, test, and deploy AI automations for the processes the Director and team have prioritized, so AI owns the work end to end and people review exceptions
Prototype quickly by vibe coding, then stress test before anything goes live: edge cases, bad inputs, volume, and failure scenarios
Harden prototypes into systems that run daily in production, not one-off scripts or personal tools
Set up monitoring for each automation: expected outputs, accuracy checks, error handling, alerting, and a clear escalation path when something fails
Measure each automation's impact in hours returned, error rates, and turnaround time
Build governance in from the start: partner with Legal, Compliance, Privacy, and Security so every automation respects MLS data licensing terms, seller privacy and instructions, and Fair Housing requirements, and keeps an audit trail of what it did
Train support, brand-facing, and operations teams on each new workflow before it launches, with walkthroughs, quick-reference guides, and office hours
Manage the change from manual to automated work: define who reviews exceptions, retire old processes cleanly, and track adoption and feedback until the new workflow sticks, partnering with the enablement team when a change reaches agents
Partner with Data & Analytics to define reporting requirements for inventory products and programs, with consistent metric definitions across teams
Test and validate report and dashboard outputs before they are used for decisions, and trace discrepancies between systems (MLS feeds, agent platform, brand websites, portals) to root cause
Monitor progress to goal on inventory metrics and flag risks to the Director early
Prepare and validate the inventory metrics and updates provided to Investor Relations, so every number that leaves the team is accurate and defensible
Run manual validations where data or automation can't yet be trusted, then turn recurring checks into automated ones
Help stand up new product offerings quickly as opportunities emerge, including testing, SOPs, tracking, and reporting from day one
Keep the SOPs governing how listings are entered, configured, distributed, and corrected current as products and MLS rules change
Handle escalations directly from agents and sales leaders with urgency and clarity: understand what's at stake for their listing or seller, explain what happened in plain language, set clear expectations on next steps, and follow through until it's resolved
Diagnose the technical issues behind escalations by reproducing the problem, gathering evidence, and bringing a root cause hypothesis to Product and Engineering
Represent the team and its brand in every field interaction, earning trust through how escalations are handled and feeding recurring issues back into testing, SOPs, and the roadmap
Be the team's working expert on how our inventory products and automations behave in practice, so the Director can stay focused on roadmap, MLS strategy, and external partners