Product Owner, BigFuture School

🇺🇸 Remote - US

🕑 Full-Time

💰 $80,000 - $135,000

💻 Product Development

🗓️ September 9th, 2023

K-12 IOS Android
About BigFuture  
BigFuture is the leading free resource committed to enabling all students to take their right first step after high school. Our products help over 15 million students, parents, counselors and teachers explore careers based on student interests and skills; discover colleges and other post-secondary educational opportunities that meet a student’s needs; and unlock scholarships and other options to pay for their education. BigFuture also helps over 1,500 Higher Education institutions connect with students across 25,000 high schools, helping them find students who may be a fit for their organizations and connecting students with post-secondary opportunities that meet their needs. 

About the Team 
BigFuture is an 80+ person core team that collaborates deeply with other divisions in the company and strategic partners in support of its mission. The BigFuture Student Product team works cross-functionally with dedicated product design and development teams, as well as with teams across the organization, to deeply understand student needs, and to discover and deliver products and services that empower all students to discover, define and pursue their right first step after high school. 

About the Opportunity  
We’re looking for an experienced, entrepreneurial, and innovative mobile Product Owner to help lead BigFuture School, a new mobile app for high school students launching this Fall; and to help advance our mission to help all students take their right first step after high school. 

BigFuture School, part of our K12 product suite, will provide high school students with an integrated experience where they can view their scores for College Board assessments, receive customized career information and guidance about planning and paying for college; and access to Connections, a new service that will allow students to hear from not-for-profit colleges and scholarship programs that may be a good match for them. 
As the Product Owner, you are a product strategy superstar who creates a vision and maintains a roadmap for BigFuture School based on trends in the market, student and customer needs, data, and organizational priorities. This includes soliciting, analyzing, and actioning feedback from divisions across College Board. You are a passionate advocate for the user and believe deeply in listening to and bringing their voice to the table through quantitative and qualitative insights as we develop strategies and solutions to solve their needs. 

You will collaborate closely with dedicated Design and Engineering teams, other product leads on the Student Product team, as well as other cross-functional partners to deeply understand the market, student needs, and our K12 and Higher Education customer base to inform and drive product decisions aligned to the portfolio. You are adept at partnering across many teams and stakeholders, leveraging assets and expertise to deliver the best that your organization has to offer.  

You have experience defining, shipping and growing consumer mobile and web products, and have developed instincts for refining product strategies rooted in user needs. You bring a customer-centric and organizationally aware mindset; are inquisitive and possess tremendous learning agility; constantly seek quantitative and qualitative information to continuously shape products for the good of the end-user. You also build strong, productive relationships while guiding, leading, and nurturing your teams and stakeholders to produce value for students, our customers and the organization. 
You are a motivated, proactive leader who can set a clear and compelling vision for your team and operate with a sense of urgency in solving problems and getting things done. You are energized by an opportunity to shape something new in a rapidly changing landscape, and motivated by the opportunity to help millions of students plan their right first step after high school. You thrive at the intersection of quantitative and qualitative information to help you understand your users needs, discover solutions, and build and refine products to continuously deliver value to users and the organization. Bonus if you have experience shipping mobile products for students and their supporting communities. 

In this role, you will:  
Strategy and Planning (40%)  
  • Shape the product vision and deliver the highest priority features on the product roadmap that are aligned to the product’s vision and organizational and business priorities 
  • Develop sprint and deployment plans aligned to our product’s go-to-market strategy, defining feature set releases that deliver value to our customers and to the business 
  • Define key product and business metrics. Gather, monitor and analyze data on product usage and user behaviors to inform prioritization of features, product direction and innovation  
  • Work with Product Design and Development teams to identify and execute upon opportunities for continuous improvement of team dynamics, enjoyment, and performance in an environment of collaboration and innovation  
  • Build strong relationships with collaborators and leverage their strengths and resources in strategic ways. 

Delivery and Execution (35%)  
  • Coordinate work between dual-track design and development agile teams that are geographically dispersed in the US  
  • Maintain clarity of feature and user story requirements; effectively communicate acceptance criteria 
  • Collaborate with key partners to shape the backlog, maintain consistent prioritization of work, and facilitate backlog refinement with the on-site development team(s).  
  • Attend and actively participate in ceremonies such as sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review/demo, retrospective ceremonies with design and development teams  

Communication, Discovery, and Research (25%)  
  • Collaborate with Design Research to lead ongoing user interviews, usability tests, A/B tests, etc. and share key findings with the team(s)  
  • Report up and out on initiative health and risks, triaging issues when needed, and developing a regular cadence of communications  
  • Work with internal stakeholders such as Accessibility, Customer Service, Communications, Data Governance, Legal, Learning and Assessment, Information Security, Marketing, and Risk Management to capture relevant requirements and priorities to inform the product design and architecture  

About You  
  • 5+ years relevant experience: working as a Product Manager/Owner (strongly preferred), or working in a related role with overlap into this field (e.g. Business Analyst, UX lead) 
  • Experience with mobile application development for iOS and/or Android (preferred) 
  • Experience defining user needs and documenting product requirements in small, well-articulated, and valuable deliverables and experience with Agile/Scrum practices 
  • Experience working with integrated product teams, managing backlogs for UX/design and development collectively 
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills 
  • Ability to complete complex tasks on short deadlines and in a fast-past environment 
  • Experience developing digital products for students, high schools or colleges, and understanding of the unique challenges associated with education technology (preferred) 
  • Experience working within a Lean-agile software product development culture, developing hypotheses, assumptions, a/b tests (preferred) 
  • Experience distilling data to inform key decisions and derive actionable insights from customer usage data from using product and site analytic tools like HEAP, Adobe Analytics, etc (preferred) 
  • Eligible to work in the U.S. 

About Our Benefits and Compensation 
College Board offers a strong compensation and benefits package that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education.   
  • Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, tuition assistance, paid time off, paid parental leave, retirement benefits with a generous matching program, and more
  • We reward performance through annual bonuses and provide opportunities for salary growth over time through base compensation increases, merit raises and promotions
  • We believe in compensating staff members fairly in relation to each other, their qualifications, and their impact. The salary range for a new employee in this position is $80,000-$135,000. The salary offer of an individual candidate within this range is specific to their location and qualifications
  • Each salary offer is determined carefully using internal and external benchmarking and adjusting for the candidate’s location. You will have an opportunity to discuss salary in more detail after you begin the application process

As a self-sustaining non-profit organization with global impact, College Board offers a job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive! 

About Our Culture  
Our community matters, and we strive to practice and improve our culture daily. Here are some headlines:  
  • We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year 
  • We prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard 
  • We welcome staff to join any or all six of our affinity groups: ARISE (Alliance for Asian Retention, Inclusion, Success, and Engagement; DIASPORA (Alliance for Pan-African Success and Achievement); Pride (alliance for LGBTQ+ staff and allies); Resilience (alliance for Native staff and advocates); SALSA (Staff Alliance for Latinx Success and Achievement); and WIN (Women’s Impact Network)  
  • We value learning and growth; we offer formal and informal ways to lead through your superpowers, sharpen your strengths, and meet your development goals 
  • We know that our impact is strongest together. Our College Board Cares program offers all staff up to $1,000 annual match against partner non-profit organizations 
  • We offer a transparent approach to promotions and merit raises, annual performance-based bonuses, and how to grow your career here over time 

About the Process  
  • Preferred Applicant Deadline:  September 1st
  • Interview Process Includes: Resume, Application; Recruiter Phone Screen; Hiring Manager Interview; Performance Exercise (such as drafting a short presentation or producing a writing sample); Panel Interview; Reference Checks (approximately 6–8-week process)  
  
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