Staff Product Manager

Nexcess

5d•$150,000 - $190,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Nexcess is seeking a Staff Product Manager to lead the product strategy and roadmap for Managed WordPress and Managed WooCommerce, with a focus on integrating AI capabilities. This senior individual-contributor role involves shaping product strategy, leading the development and launch of AI-enabled features, and contributing to the company's overall AI and software strategy. The role requires close collaboration with various departments, including Engineering, Design, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success, and involves influencing cross-functional initiatives and mentoring other product managers. The Staff Product Manager will translate strategic priorities into actionable product plans and incorporate customer and market insights into ongoing strategy development.

Requirements

Significant product management experience, including experience operating at a Staff, Principal, Lead, or comparable level of scope, responsibility, and impact.
Demonstrated knowledge of the WordPress ecosystem, including plugins, themes, agencies, freelancers, and common website development and maintenance practices.
Experience with web hosting, cloud infrastructure, or related technology products, with an understanding of the technical and commercial considerations that may differ from traditional SaaS products.
Demonstrated experience leading or contributing significantly to the development and launch of new products or product capabilities, including bringing offerings from concept through customer availability and adoption.
Hands-on experience developing, testing, evaluating, or launching AI-enabled products or features. This may include prompt development, model-output evaluation, experimentation, or implementation of customer-facing AI capabilities.
Experience designing, implementing, or managing AI agents or agentic systems, including relevant tooling, orchestration, evaluation, monitoring, and failure or exception handling.
Experience contributing to commercial product outcomes, such as revenue growth, pricing, packaging, monetization, margin, or other business performance measures.
Experience defining, monitoring, and using product and business KPIs to evaluate performance, inform decisions, and drive accountability.
Experience leading, mentoring, coaching, or managing product professionals or cross-functional product teams.
Demonstrated customer focus, including experience gathering and incorporating direct customer feedback into product strategy, prioritization, or product decisions.
Experience building, supporting, or actively participating in developer, creator, open-source, or comparable professional communities.

Nice To Haves

Experience founding, operating, or leading a business, agency, product venture, or comparable initiative with significant ownership and accountability for business outcomes.
Technical knowledge sufficient to understand software development concepts, interpret technical documentation or code, evaluate APIs, and collaborate effectively with engineering teams.
Experience working within a multi-product or portfolio business serving shared or overlapping customer segments.
Familiarity with open-source communities, contribution models, governance practices, and commercial business models associated with open-source software.

Responsibilities

Define and maintain the product strategy, target customer segments, customer needs, value propositions, and scope of Managed WordPress and Managed WooCommerce.
Develop and manage product roadmaps that identify strategic priorities, key investments, trade-offs, dependencies, and expected outcomes.
Lead product decisions related to features, packaging, service tiers, upgrade paths, and the end-to-end customer experience, in alignment with applicable business priorities and governance processes.
Define and prioritize opportunities to incorporate AI capabilities across the customer lifecycle, including onboarding, site creation, optimization, maintenance, and growth.
Partner with the VP of Product and cross-functional stakeholders to inform and support the company’s AI vision and software strategy.
Develop and communicate customer- and data-informed recommendations regarding AI opportunities, priorities, risks, and expected business value.
Translate approved company and product strategies into actionable plans and roadmaps for Managed WordPress and Managed WooCommerce.
Incorporate customer insights, market developments, product performance, and lessons learned into ongoing strategy and roadmap planning.
Represent the hosting and WooCommerce product perspective in portfolio-level discussions involving software, infrastructure, and shared customer experiences.
Identify and assess unmet customer needs, validate product opportunities, and lead the development and launch of new products or capabilities.
Lead customer discovery, product validation, prototyping, and experimentation activities, including hands-on evaluation of AI models, prompts, tools, and agent frameworks, as appropriate.
Define and prioritize minimum viable product scope, establish success measures, and use customer and performance insights to guide iteration and future investment.
Balance speed, quality, customer value, technical feasibility, risk, and business considerations throughout the product development lifecycle.
Define product requirements and partner with engineering and other stakeholders to design, develop, launch, and improve AI-enabled and agentic product capabilities.
Evaluate opportunities for AI agents to support customer outcomes, including site setup, content generation, performance optimization, migrations, and customer support.
Establish or contribute to standards for AI evaluation, quality measurement, safety and risk controls, cost management, model selection, and performance monitoring.
Partner with engineering and technical stakeholders on architecture, technical feasibility, implementation considerations, and product trade-offs.
Lead product strategy and planning in support of agreed commercial and customer outcomes, including pricing, packaging, margin, adoption, attach rate, conversion, retention, and expansion.
Develop business cases and product investment recommendations that incorporate customer value, market opportunity, expected financial impact, costs, risks, and resource requirements.
Partner with Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and other stakeholders to support product positioning, launches, go-to-market planning, adoption, and customer growth.
Monitor product performance and recommend adjustments based on agreed business and customer measures.
Establish product and business KPIs aligned with company objectives and approved product strategies.
Partner with relevant teams to support appropriate product instrumentation, data quality, reporting, and performance measurement.
Communicate product performance, key insights, risks, and recommended actions to product leadership and relevant stakeholders.
Use customer feedback, market information, and quantitative performance data to prioritize investments, improve product outcomes, and recommend changes to product plans when appropriate.
Engage directly with customers and customer-facing teams through interviews, support insights, sales discussions, customer feedback, community engagement, and other appropriate channels.
Incorporate customer needs, feedback, and experience considerations into product strategy, prioritization, and decision-making.
Evaluate qualitative and quantitative customer insights to identify trends, validate product opportunities, and inform product recommendations.
Participate in relevant WordPress, hosting, developer, agency, and partner communities to gather market insights, strengthen relationships, and support product strategy.
Build and maintain productive relationships with agencies, developers, technology partners, and plugin and theme providers.
Represent the company and its products in industry or community forums, events, and external engagements, as appropriate and in coordination with applicable company policies and communications guidelines.
Mentor and coach product managers and contribute to the development of product management practices, capabilities, and standards.
Lead cross-functional product initiatives by establishing clear goals, responsibilities, priorities, decision-making processes, and stakeholder alignment.
Facilitate effective collaboration and support timely resolution of product risks, dependencies, and areas of ambiguity.
Assume people-management responsibilities if assigned based on organizational needs and business requirements.