Sr. Product Manager, Product Design & User Research, Sophia Learning

Strayer Education, Inc.

15d•$133,600 - $200,400

About The Position

The Sr. Product Manager, Product Design & User Research at Sophia Learning is a senior product and design technology leader responsible for defining and executing the long-term vision for Sophia Learning’s product ecosystem. The role combines ownership of product outcomes with hands-on user research and design, shaping a user-centric, scalable, intelligent, and future-ready learning platform. Priorities include centralizing customer data insights, enabling predictive analytics and experimentation, and applying AI to improve learner and partner experiences. Working across product strategy, user experience design, and AI innovation, this leader partners with executives, business partners, data scientists, and engineering leaders to understand user behavior and advance Sophia’s vision for learning. The role includes implementing an agentic-enabled design system and guiding the strategic application of AI across Sophia Learning products. As a senior leader in the product organization, the position influences company-wide priorities, mentors product peers, and aligns investments with Sophia Learning’s mission of expanding opportunity and access through education. It owns the voice of the customer and experience direction, builds a continuous discovery practice to identify problems worth solving, and secures executive alignment using research evidence and trade-off analysis.

Requirements

Deep expertise in product design, user research, AI-driven product strategy, and large-scale platform systems.
Proven ability to lead research and translate customer insight into product direction, influencing what gets built.
Ability to define requirements, prioritize a backlog, own delivery, and personally produce user flows, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes.
Strong understanding of modern design and prototyping tools, component-based design systems, accessibility standards, and component lifecycle management, including design systems structured for agentic development and AI coding tools.
Ability to bridge technical depth and executive influence, communicate complex technical concepts clearly, and turn research findings into decisions.
Demonstrated success leading cross-functional AI initiatives spanning design, data engineering, product, and data science.
Skill in defining AI governance frameworks and human-centered AI design principles to ensure responsible, compliant use of data and models.
Exceptional leadership and mentoring skills, including developing product talent and fostering innovation, accountability, and technical and design excellence.
Thought leadership in AI design strategy, personalization, and data ethics, focused on measurable customer impact.
At least 6 years of product design and/or product management experience in SaaS, data platform, or AI-driven product environments, including hands-on design work and ownership of product outcomes for complex, cross-functional product areas.
Demonstrated success collaborating with executive stakeholders and technical leaders to deliver transformative business outcomes.
Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Cognitive Science, Learning Science, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
Authorized to work in the United States; visa sponsorship is not available.
Must be able to meet the critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and computer-access requirements of the role.
Must be able to work more than 40 hours per week when business needs warrant, with schedule accommodations considered.
Must be able to travel occasionally if business needs arise.

Nice To Haves

EdTech experience.
Track record leading product design initiatives, including customer-facing AI initiatives, from concept through implementation.
Working familiarity with cloud data ecosystems such as GCP, AWS, or Azure and modern data and AI tools; hands-on depth is welcome but not required.
Experience with behavioral analytics and experimentation tools.
Experience establishing or scaling a research or continuous discovery practice, including research that changed a roadmap decision.
Master’s degree preferred.
Generative AI Solution Development certification.
Product strategy or continuous discovery coursework, such as Reforge, Pragmatic Institute, or Continuous Discovery Habits.
Accessibility certification, such as IAAP CPACC.

Responsibilities

Define and lead the multi-year product strategy for the user experience of Sophia’s online learning platform, aligned with business goals and executive priorities.
Establish and lead a continuous discovery and user research practice using interviews, usability testing, surveys, and journey mapping; synthesize research, behavioral data, and market signals into problem statements, personas, and prioritized opportunities.
Guide the organization’s AI product vision and roadmap in collaboration with engineering, data science, and product leaders across multiple product areas.
Lead initiatives to embed machine learning, natural language processing, and generative AI models into core Sophia Learning applications to enable automation and intelligent user experiences.
Advise executive leadership by translating research insights and technical opportunities into business value and influencing portfolio-level decisions.
Establish design best practices and design review mechanisms to ensure consistent product quality.
Own end-to-end learner, partner, and administrative experiences; translate user needs and business goals into flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity designs, and partner with Engineering to deliver designs with strong quality and accessibility, including WCAG 2.1 AA.
Oversee the design and delivery of a scalable, governed design system, including centralized design assets, standards, documentation, and accessibility models that support agentic development.
Partner with Engineering, Data/Analytics, and AI teams to implement UX success metrics and an experimentation framework supporting predictive analytics, personalization, and automation.
Mentor and coach Product Managers, advancing design thinking, product strategy, customer-centric thinking, research methods, and rapid prototyping with the design system and agentic development tools.
Represent Sophia Learning as an industry thought leader in AI for online learning, ethical AI, and data-driven learning experiences.