Group Product Manager- D&A - Budget Management and Financial Planning
Hybrid to Wayne, PA; Hybrid to Naperville, IL; Hybrid to Austin, TX; Remote
Frontline Education is a pioneer of school administration software purpose-built for K-12 districts. We provide innovative, connected solutions for student and special programs, business operations, and human capital management with powerful data and analytics to empower educators and administrators. We earn the trust of K-12 leaders across the U.S. by serving as a consistently high-performing, forthright partner of school districts through every dimension of the company.
We're a group of unique and talented individuals that love what we do who work with an appreciative and friendly customer base. We work hard to make our customers happy, but we like to have a good time in the process. We are a company that strives to think in terms of “we” instead of “me.” We believe in the philosophy of servant leadership and that it’s all about putting others first. We also value the balance between family and work.
Position Vision/Objectives:
Group Product Managers are people managers in addition to product managers, focusing on the leading product strategy as well as cross-solution, big picture initiatives while overseeing their team. This is a leadership role which involves directing the product owners responsible for a particular product or group of products within the same solution pillar. The role is a fine balance of individual contribution and people management. In this role, Group Product Managers will share their passion for the key mission of being a world class Product Manager – consistently delivering the right value to clients on time.
Product Management Responsibilities:
- Under the leadership of the Data and Analytics Pillar lead (Director of Product), driving product vision, roadmap, and strategy that delights customers and creates buy-in for the product vision
- A Product General Manager (GM) mindset: Engages with Frontline’s customers, services, and sales teams to understand requirements, and to ensure successful product delivery. Additionally, engages with Finance to ensure strategy aligns with Frontline’s financial targets.
- Champions the definition of creative, high quality, simple product roadmaps based on co-developed strategy and vision.
- Assumes business outcome and ownership of all direct and tangential product initiatives.
- Collaborates with Product Owners and software engineers to turn functional specifications into next-generation business services.
- Accountable for leading the team to execute on the right features in terms of requirements, definition, quality and metrics for their product.
- Communicates with clarity across multiple stakeholders, collaborate with business partners and development teams, and influence decisions at all levels of the organization.
- Partner with the UX team through research and customer validation to ensure we are solving the problems in the right way
- Participates in customer facing situations and user conferences as a product expert.
Domain Knowledge and Expertise:
- Deeply understands analytical products from the both the analyst and executive persona.
- Quasi-technical understanding of the software and data architecture for analytics products
- Strong working experience with Excel, Tableau, and other financial planning tools
- Finance background, preferably in K-12, with experience in financial budgeting and planning.
- An understanding of fund accounting
- An understanding of financial projections and monthly budgeting
People leadership:
- Provide leadership around implementing the Operational Practices – you are the change agent
- People Management responsibility
- Owns team goals and accountability, as well as team member development goals
- Participates in Salary/bonus and performance management responsibility for team
- Ensures the Product Management discipline is understood by your team and the team adheres to theory, best practice and guidelines as outlined by Product Operations
- Guides the onboarding of new team members, ensure new team members has an assigned on boarding point of contact
- Creates an inspiring team environment with an open communication culture
Operational leadership:
- Keeps team on track with deliverables and works to address any blockers – for example, supports change management of team adopting a new way of communicating the roadmap
- Ensures reporting data is kept up to date for leadership & Stakeholders (Solution leaders, Director, CPO, Product Team) to inform on plans, status, progress of planned roadmap initiatives against KPI’s with both external and internal stakeholders
- examples are roadmaps, release progress, launches, other as needed
Position Requirements:
- Proven expertise leading cross-functional teams that together launch on-time and on-budget.
- You will be required to showcase excellent leadership, people management, project management, problem solving, and communication to both internal and external colleagues at scale.
- A proven performer with strong intracompany relationships and the ability to directly and indirectly lead teams and projects.
- Strong Product Management experience
- Strong understanding of Agile Methodology
- Demonstration of Leadership and management ability
- Demonstration of ability to effectively perform the Product role, is data driven, process orientation, open to feedback and development “is coach-able”
- Strong Analytical skills and great understanding of k-12 related data
- Coordinate data/development projects and prioritize the ongoing work of those teams.
- Evaluate and prioritize customer requirements, leveraging industry best practices and new innovations. Prioritize and manage the backlog for effective release and planning.
- 7+ years in Product Management designing and delivering world-class software products or equivalent experience.
- Bachelor degree in a Business, Computer Science, engineering or related field, or equivalent professional experience. Masters degree or MBA is a plus.
Working knowledge of product strategy and key business results (Bookings, Retention, Operational Efficiency), including but not limited to:
- Competitive Analysis
- Market Analysis & SWOT
- Total Addressable Market (TAM)
- Win/Loss Analysis
- Customer Sat and retention analysis
Lead team through activities related to Annual Planning Process
- Initiative candidate pool analysis
- Tee Shirt/LOE estimates
- Business case development
- Performance and quality analysis
- Define & Stack Rank Key Initiatives / Dependencies
- Establish Multi-Year Product Strategy, Initiatives & Stages
Frontline embraces diversity, equity, and inclusivity. We are intentionally building a workplace that respects, supports, and values the identities of all our employees. We believe this to be foundational in developing a strong community in our company. Frontline Education is an equal opportunity employer and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
Frontline offers a competitive compensation package including a base salary, rewarding bonus structure, 401k match, and unlimited PTO! Our company growth has created a promising environment for career advancement and rewarding challenges. We offer a tuition reimbursement program for eligible college credit coursework available to employees depending on their status and length of employment.
