Staff Technical Product Manager (Trade-ins)

Scout Motors • Fremont, CA

1d • $140,000 - $187,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Join an iconic brand redefining the direct‑to‑consumer automotive experience. As a Staff Technical Product Manager focused on Vehicle Trade‑Ins, you will play a critical role in enabling a seamless, scalable, and trustworthy trade‑in experience as part of our in‑house transaction platform. You will own the product strategy and execution for external integrations, ensuring accurate vehicle valuations, smooth operational handoffs, and complete VIN‑level tracking from trade‑in intake through final disposition. This role sits at the intersection of customer experience, transactional systems, and downstream operational workflows that support trade‑ins, remarketing, and vehicle acquisitions. This role is in direct partnership with the consumer facing product team, and accountable for the underlying systems, integrations, and internal tooling that power that experience - ensuring reliability, transparency, and auditability across the lifecycle of a traded vehicle. This is a highly strategic and technical individual contributor role, requiring strong judgment, deep systems thinking, and close collaboration with engineering, operations, and external partners.

Requirements

• 8+ years of product management experience, with a strong emphasis on technical platforms or complex integrations.
• Demonstrated success delivering transaction‑related, marketplace, or lifecycle‑driven systems involving external partners.
• Strong understanding of system architecture, APIs, event‑driven systems, and data integration patterns.
• Experience with platforms such as order management, inventory systems, logistics, ERP, or marketplace integrations.
• Comfort collaborating deeply with engineering teams on complex technical tradeoffs without acting as an engineering manager.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence across product, engineering, operations, and external partners.
• Strong product judgment and data‑driven decision‑making ability.
• Ability to manage ambiguity, operational risk, and third‑party dependencies while maintaining a customer‑first mindset.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field, though demonstrated experience in real-world product development is far more critical.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with automotive trade‑ins, remarketing, inventory management, or vehicle acquisitions is strongly preferred.
• Direct‑to‑consumer automotive experience or accounting/finance is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Define and Lead Trade‑In Product Strategy: Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for vehicle trade‑in systems within the direct‑to‑consumer transaction platform.
• Define how front-end trade‑in flows, internal operational tools, and external systems work together end‑to‑end.
• Translate business goals (conversion, valuation accuracy, operational efficiency, recovery value, risk mitigation) into clear product outcomes and prioritized initiatives.
• Partner closely with stakeholders in trade‑ins, remarketing, and vehicle acquisitions to shape scalable and executable plans.
• Own Trade‑In Integrations: Lead external integrations that provide vehicle valuations and ultimately purchases vehicles taken in on trade.
• Define product requirements for valuation requests, pricing responses, eligibility rules, offer expiration, and transaction handoff.
• Serve as the primary product counterpart to the external platform, aligning on APIs, data contracts, SLAs, release coordination, and issue resolution.
• Ensure integrations support both real‑time customer interactions and downstream operational workflows.
• Vehicle Record & VIN‑Level Tracking Ownership: Own the systems responsible for creating and maintaining a cohesive vehicle record for every traded‑in VIN.
• Ensure vehicles can be tracked from the moment a trade‑in is accepted through intake, storage, movement, and final disposition.
• Define status models, lifecycle events, and handoff points that provide clarity to operational teams and downstream systems.
• Ensure trade‑in vehicles are fully traceable, auditable, and reconciled across financial, operational, and partner systems.
• Internal Tooling & Operational Enablement: Define internal tools and workflows that enable teams responsible for trade‑ins, remarketing, and vehicle acquisitions to view trade‑in details, valuation data, and offer terms, track vehicle location, condition, and status post‑intake, manage exceptions, discrepancies, and disputes, and coordinate handoff and disposal.
• Design tooling that reduces manual work, improves accuracy, and supports operational scale.
• Balance operational speed with data integrity and audit requirements.
• Cross‑Functional Leadership: Collaborate closely with engineering, operations, finance, legal, logistics, and customer experience teams.
• Partner with the customer experience product team to ensure underlying capabilities support a seamless and trustworthy customer journey.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders, clearly communicating tradeoffs, dependencies, and business impact.
• Technical & Platform Stewardship: Partner with engineering to deliver scalable, reliable, and maintainable trade‑in systems.
• Influence architectural decisions around APIs, event flows, data models, and system boundaries.
• Ensure clean integration between trade‑in systems, transaction platforms, vehicle tracking, and downstream financial reporting.
• Operationalize & Measure Success: Support rollout and iteration of trade‑in capabilities across markets and product lines.
• Define and track KPIs such as trade‑in attachment rate, valuation accuracy, exception rates, cycle time, and recovery value.
• Use data and operational feedback to continuously improve trade‑in reliability and efficiency.

Benefits

• Competitive insurance including: Medical, dental, vision and income protection plans
• 401(k) program with: An employer match and immediate vesting
• Generous Paid Time Off including: 20 days planned PTO, as accrued
• 40 hours of unplanned PTO and 14 company or floating holidays, annually
• Up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave for biological and adoptive parents of all genders
• Paid leave for circumstances related to bereavement, jury duty, voting time, or military leave
• Pay Transparency
• Annual performance bonus program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior