Senior Product Manager

Custom Software Systems Inc.•Washington, DC

About The Position

Custom Software Systems, Inc. (CSS) is seeking a Senior Product Manager to lead the strategy and development of a cloud-based research computing platform supporting economic research. The ideal candidate brings strong technical product management experience, hands-on knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP), and a proven ability to translate complex user needs into secure, scalable platform solutions. This is a technical Product Management role, not a Project or Program Management position. U.S. Citizenship is required.

Requirements

Minimum of ten (10) years of professional experience.
Minimum of six (6) years of technical product management experience, with at least four (4) years of experience working directly with cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP) in a product or engineering capacity.
Candidates with only project or program management experience need not apply.
At least six (6) years in product management, engineering, and/or management consulting.
At least three (3) years of product management, product design, agile delivery, business analysis, data science, or software engineering.
Experience managing the delivery, ongoing success, and continuous improvement of one or more digital products and/or platforms.
Deep understanding of cloud infrastructure and services, including compute, storage, networking, security, containers, orchestration, etc.
Hands-on experience with system design for cloud-based applications and systems.
Proficiency in platform engineering principles like CI/CD pipelines, IaC, observability and monitoring.
Strong understanding of modern AI-based development workflows.
Proven track record of shipping successful enterprise or research and development focused products from conception to launch.
Experience collaborating closely with security and compliance teams, including navigating data governance, access controls, and risk review processes.
Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally across engineering, security, data, and business/end-user stakeholders.
Demonstrated experience defining strategy and roadmaps for enterprise platforms.
Excellent communication skills, ability to engage effectively with business, technical, and executive stakeholders.
Bachelor’s Degree in business, computer science or related fields.
At least one of the following or its equivalent: ITIL 4 Foundation certifications Certified Product Manager.

Nice To Haves

Experience with academic research-based workflows is a huge plus.

Responsibilities

Lead one or more multi-disciplinary agile delivery teams to deliver excellent new products and/or iterations to existing products to meet user needs.
Gather user requirements based on a communicable understanding of diverse audience groups.
Create effective, prioritized product descriptions and delivery plans to meet user needs cost-effectively.
Manage a product roadmap for a set of features from inception through implementation; collect requirements, establish key performance metrics, craft the user experience, and drive execution.
Manage the end-to-end product strategy and roadmap for a cloud-based platform to support economic research.
Partner closely with researchers across our economic divisions to gather requirements and translate them into clear product specifications and priorities.
Deeply understand user needs and pain points across different use cases and use that insight to drive prioritization and solutioning.
Partner with architecture, cloud engineering, enterprise data platform, security, and the platform delivery team to design and develop a platform that meets the needs of researchers while ensuring proper data governance and security.
Lead discovery efforts including user research, journey mapping, and workflow design to ensure solutions are usable and aligned with real-world processes.
Demonstrate ownership, operate with high agency, and hold teams accountable to ensure cross-team alignment and timely delivery of outcomes and deliverables.
Balance short-term delivery with long-term platform strategy to support scalable solutions.
Define success metrics and continuously measure, iterate, and improve the product based on usage data and user feedback.
Manage stakeholder expectations and implement processes for sharing relevant information and project updates with business stakeholders in a clear and consistent manner.
Communicate product vision, progress, and tradeoffs clearly to technical, non-technical, and executive stakeholders.