VP Product Management

IPS Group Inc.•San Diego, CA

4d•$225,000 - $265,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Vice President, Product Management owns product strategy, roadmap, and lifecycle management for the entire IPS portfolio, globally. Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, this executive leads and grows the Product Management organization and is accountable for translating market needs, customer insight, and company strategy into a prioritized, well-sequenced roadmap that Engineering can execute and that Sales, Operations, and Customer Success can bring to market. This is a hands-on leadership role. The successful candidate is equally comfortable setting multi-year portfolio strategy for the Board and working alongside engineers and customers on the details of a release. They will establish product management as a rigorous, data-driven discipline at IPS and serve as the connective tissue between hardware, software, payments, and services.

Requirements

Demonstrated ownership of a portfolio that combines physical hardware or connected devices with cloud software — the candidate must be credible in both.
Experience with payment-enabled products and a working understanding of the payments ecosystem, including card-present and digital payment acceptance.
Experience selling to and delivering for public-sector and institutional customers, including formal procurement, RFP response, and long sales cycles.
Experience owning products across multiple geographies and regulatory regimes, with the cultural awareness to operate globally.
Fluency in Agile delivery practices and modern product tooling; ability to work directly with engineering teams without an intermediary.
Strong commercial and analytical skills, including pricing, business case development, and product profitability.
Exceptional written and verbal communication, with the presence to brief executives, customers, and the Board.
Legal authorization to work in the United States and ability to travel domestically and internationally.
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, business, or a related field.
Twelve or more years of product management experience, including five or more years leading product management teams, with experience managing other managers.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degrees such as an MBA.
Direct experience in parking, curb management, transportation, smart city, or adjacent mobility technology.
Experience in a private-equity-backed company, including diligence, acquisition integration, or preparation for a transaction.
Experience transitioning a portfolio toward recurring revenue, SaaS, or managed service models.
Experience with hardware new product introduction and regulatory or payment certification cycles.

Responsibilities

Define and own the global product strategy and multi-year roadmap across all IPS product lines and services, aligned to company growth objectives.
Maintain a clear, differentiated positioning for each product line, and make explicit investment, sustain, and end-of-life decisions across the portfolio.
Build and defend business cases for new products, major features, and platform investments, including market sizing, pricing, margin impact, and expected return.
Serve as the single point of accountability for portfolio trade-offs across hardware, software, payments, and services.
Translate strategy into prioritized epics, requirements, and acceptance criteria that Engineering can plan and deliver against.
Partner with Engineering leadership on quarterly planning, commitment, and release governance; hold the roadmap accountable to committed dates and quality standards.
Own product lifecycle management end to end, including new product introduction, regional launch readiness, sustaining releases, and product retirement.
Establish and report product performance measures — adoption, utilization, reliability, customer satisfaction, and revenue contribution.
Maintain direct, continuous contact with customers and prospects across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and other served markets.
Build a durable competitive and market intelligence capability, including regulatory and standards developments affecting parking, curb management, and mobility.
Represent IPS with customers, partners, industry associations, and at conferences and trade shows as a credible voice on where the market is going.
Bring the voice of the customer into prioritization decisions in a structured, evidence-based way.
Partner with Sales and Marketing on go-to-market strategy, positioning, pricing, sales enablement, and support of major bids and public-sector procurements.
Partner with Operations, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing on hardware forecasting, cost targets, component strategy, and transition planning.
Partner with Customer Success and Support on onboarding, adoption, and closed-loop feedback from the installed base.
Provide clear, concise reporting on product strategy and performance to the executive team and the Board of Directors.
Ensure product requirements reflect the regulatory and contractual obligations of the markets IPS serves, including payment industry, privacy, and accessibility requirements.
Partner with Security, Compliance, and Engineering so that products are designed and released consistently with IPS Group’s PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC 2 Type II compliance and applicable data protection law; specific compliance determinations rest with the Security and Compliance function and counsel.
Champion adoption of open and emerging industry standards where they create customer value and reduce integration friction.
Lead, coach, and grow the global Product Management organization; define roles, levels, and career paths in partnership with Human Resources.
Establish consistent product management practices, artifacts, and cadences across all product lines.
Recruit and retain senior product talent and build bench strength through deliberate development and succession planning.
Model collaborative, transparent leadership and hold the organization to high standards of accountability.