Western Governors University
Staff Software Product Manager
SCRUM
Edtech.com's Summary
Western Governors University is hiring a Staff Software Product Manager. This role involves bridging technical expertise and product strategy by collaborating with cross-functional teams to develop product roadmaps, build business cases, and deliver impactful outcomes that balance business goals and user needs. The manager communicates with stakeholders, ensures product quality, leads research and measurement of success metrics, and drives alignment through compelling presentations.
Highlights
- Works closely with stakeholders, UX designers, engineers, architects, and product leaders to define product vision and requirements.
- Creates, manages, and presents strategic product roadmaps and compelling presentations to align business stakeholders.
- Acts as an expert on the product platform, identifying gaps to inform both near-term and long-term strategies.
- Accountable for delivering outcomes and identifying unique product opportunities.
- Manages expectations and proactively communicates risks to stakeholders.
- Ensures product quality by testing features and coordinating user acceptance testing.
- Leads research and develops data collection strategies to measure success and pivot as needed.
- Writes business cases and conducts ROI and value analyses.
- Requires 8 years of software product management experience, bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, and experience with agile environments.
- Preferred qualifications include a master's degree, professional product certifications (e.g., CSPO), and education technology experience.
- Salary range: $157,000.00 to $243,400.00, plus full benefits including bonuses, health insurance, retirement plans, paid leave, and tuition discounts.
- Requires up to 20% travel for company summits and other business events.
Staff Software Product Manager Full Description
If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.
Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.
The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.
At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
Grade: Technical 411Pay Range: $157,000.00 - $243,400.00
Grade: Technical 411Pay Range: $157,000.00 - $243,400.00
Job Description
Job Profile Summary:
The Staff Software Product Manager at WGU is an individual contributor role for an experienced and highly technical product architecture professional. They play a key role in the software development process, bridging the gap between technical expertise and product strategy. They should possess a holistic understanding of both technology and business to lead successful software product initiatives.
You will collaborate with a cross-functional teams, product peers, and enterprise architecture and engineering to develop strategic product roadmaps that ensure a holistic end-to-end user experience. You will build business cases, articulate strategy, and evangelize the product vision to stakeholders and cross-functional team members. You will measure and report on the efficacy of your initiatives and develop action plans accordingly. You will make hard, high-stakes trade-offs between features, choosing those that are most likely to ensure that both business goals and user needs are met.
We look for candidates who can demonstrate a history of delivering outcomes through a partnership with design, engineering, architecture, and the business. Someone who, as an excellent storyteller, can represent the interests of the users they serve and influence teams to generate the outcomes that resolve their most pressing problems. We look for candidates who are collaborative by nature, empathetic to users, and are most likely to garner the trust of the stakeholders they serve.
We are looking for candidates who can demonstrate a history of delivering high impact outcomes through a partnership with design, engineering, architecture, and stakeholders. Someone who, as an excellent storyteller, can represent the interests of the users they serve and influence teams to generate the outcomes that resolve their most pressing problems. We look for candidates who are collaborative by nature, empathetic to users, and are most likely to garner the trust of the stakeholders they serve.
Job Duties
- Works closely with cross functional team of stakeholders, end-users, UX designers, engineers, architects, and product leaders to understand the problems to solve, help drive the product vision and define requirements.
- Creates, manages, and regularly presents a strategic roadmap to both stakeholders and delivery teams.
- Creates compelling strategic presentations that tell a story to drive alignment with business stakeholders
- Recognized expert for their product, demonstrating mastery of the current platform with a deep understanding of gaps that inform their near-term product roadmap and helps to establish long-term strategy.
- Is accountable for delivering outcomes and can identify unique opportunities across multiple areas of the product to do so.
- Manages expectations by understanding when initiatives are at risk and proactively communicates with stakeholders.
- Models' best practices and shares learned insights across the product organization
- Ensures product quality by testing software features to ensure the satisfy the acceptance criteria and works with stakeholders and end users to coordinate user acceptance testing activities.
- Leads research efforts to provide clarity from ambiguity and develops data collection strategies that identify the right outcomes for measuring success.
- Defines a plan for capturing success metrics for their products and projects and consistently monitors the metrics, pivoting when the data suggests a need to do so.
- Writes business cases and conducts ROI and other value analyses and presents in planning activities.
KSAs
- Ability to think strategically about product, align it with business goals, and make decisions that have long-term impact on product development and success.
- Proven track record of delivering impactful outcomes
- Ability to deliver compelling narratives though presentations, documents, and verbal communications
- Leadership instincts with a positive team building approach
- Strong problem-solving skills to address technical challenges and make critical decisions regarding software architecture and development.
- Ability to communicate with parties within and outside of the university (e.g., customers, partners, vendors, etc.)
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree or Equivalent, relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements. Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.
- 8 years of experience as a Software Product Manager
- Experience working in agile environments
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's Degree
- Professional Product Certification (e.g., Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Pragmatic Marketing)
- Experience in Education Technology
Job Description Disclaimer: This position description provides the major duties/responsibilities, requirements, and working conditions for the position. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current position, however management reserves the right to revise or change as necessary to meet organizational needs. Other responsibilities may be assigned when circumstances require.
This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.
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Position & Application Details
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.
How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.
Additional Information
Disclaimer: The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It's not all-inclusive.
Accommodations: Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.
Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.
