Technical Product Manager, Sharpen

McGraw Hill LLC.

3d • $76,500 - $125,000 • Remote

About The Position

At McGraw Hill we create best-in-class, next-generation learning platforms that are used by millions of students and educators worldwide every day. We design intuitive and effective tools and experiences that maximize teachers’ time and students’ learning. And we do all of this in a supportive and collaborative environment where we work alongside brilliant colleagues, touch lives around the world, see the difference our hard work makes, and continue our paths of lifelong learning. Your impact on the team The Technical Product Manager (TPM) is a results-oriented individual with a passion and capability for creating high-quality learning solutions, on-time, on-scope and on-quality. As a leader of products, platforms, and/or teams within DPG, the TPM is an advocate for customer-empathetic software, able to promote teamwork and knowledge sharing, and demonstrate thoughtful collaboration with customers and stakeholders across multiple business units. The TPM partners with business unit product managers in the design, development and implementation of digital learning solutions. The TPM leads 1 to 3 Agile development teams; they are responsible for driving the successful delivery of product and/or platform iterations to the market. The Technical Product Manager is responsible for helping their product, content, and/or platform team(s) to define, manage, and implement innovative digital products and platform functionalities that are uniquely responsive to market demands and MH priorities. The Technical Product Manager acts as the conscience of the product, prioritizing the needs of customers against available resources to deliver viable solutions that will succeed in the market and improve learning for students, instructors, and institutions. This is a remote position open to applicants authorized to work for any employer within the United States. It requires up to 25% travel for the year and preference will be given to applicants who reside in Central or East Coast time zones.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field
• 3+ years of experience in leading Agile-based, software product development teams and/or leading content development teams, with an emphasis on Pre-K through Higher Education content development and management
• Demonstrated success defining and launching complex SaaS products, especially in educational software, to large, established user bases and with no downtime
• Strong decision-making, persuasion, and negotiation skills
• Ability to understand and transform technical concepts into non-technical terms that are understandable by business and customer stakeholders and teams
• Experience with wireframe and design analysis, business/ecommerce/SaaS application analysis, use case diagram development, and user story writing
• Demonstrated ability to lead user-centered design processes, with a strong focus on user experience
• Proven success at influencing and collaborating across teams and work cultures; must be able to collaborate effectively with diverse personalities and skill sets and enjoy constructive conflict
• Knowledge of instructional design; experience in scalable production of digital content
• Demonstrated ability to enter new situations and drive change
• Deadline‐conscious, results‐driven, and high‐performing in a high‐intensity environment
• Acute attention to detail, ability to analyze complex systems, and expertise at managing multiple projects concurrently
• Excellent verbal, written, demo, interpersonal, and organizational communication skills; must be able to communicate with technical teams and business stakeholders, as well as clearly document software for these audiences
• Jira and Confluence experience

Nice To Haves

• Experience working with remote teams in various time zones
• Scrum Product Owner Certification
• Basic understanding of fundamental principles of business
• Knowledge of and experience using the Higher Education digital products and platforms

Responsibilities

• Be the conscience of the product, continuously looking at the product from the end-user’s perspective and driving the complete experience to the best possible outcome for the end user. Ensure the customer experience is represented as a top priority throughout all stages of development, resulting in user empathetic software.
• Partner with multiple product owners to develop a vision, strategy, and prioritized feature backlog. Resolve ambiguous product requirements to achieve a clear vision that can then be shared with product and/or platform team(s).
• Develop a shared vision for product(s) through investigation of market demands, user feedback, and competitive analysis. In partnership with the business unit, gather and prioritize product and customer requirements, articulate user personas and needs, and facilitate user testing programs, including business acceptance testing and user research.
• Own, drive, and deliver the product and/or platform cycle plans aligned with business milestones. Partner with development teams, business units, and customer-facing teams to ensure a viable scope is delivered on-time, on-budget, and on-quality. Work with content development teams to ensure the successful, on-scope release of content into the platform and to applicable markets.
• Draft project charters, requirements, and themes/epics/stories while considering and/or incorporating inputs from all stakeholders. The TPM translates requests and customer needs into working requirements for the engineering team, and work with the engineering team to ensure that the delivered product/service is in line with the desired functionality for roadmap milestones.
• Oversee the care and feeding of the product and/or platform: ensure all aspects of the product and/or platform receive attention, including technical debt, infrastructure, tools, and feature functionality.
• Assist in troubleshooting and resolving customer-reported issues; assess trends and suggest enhancements to drive down call volume and improve the customer experience in platform.
• Ensure cross team dependencies are identified, understood by all affected teams, and then properly managed. When the TPM is dependent upon multiple teams, it is the TPM’s responsibility to lead cross-team collaboration and coordination that results in a successful end-to-end user experience. This cross-team communication, leadership, and alignment are essential for the TPM to be successful.
• Track competitive and technological landscape, keeping abreast of new innovations and developments in the market space.
• Partner with the business units around knowledge transfer and training on new product features. The TPM must work with the sales and marketing team to evangelize and explain the new product/platform to ensure positive impact on revenues and work with ancillary departments across the organization to share the benefits of the release across business units.

Benefits

• The work you do at McGraw Hill will be work that matters. We are collectively designing content that will build the future of education. Play your part and experience a sense of fulfillment that will inspire you to even greater heights.
• An annual bonus plan may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical and/or other benefits, depending on the position offered.

What This Job Offers

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