Senior Product Manager

Position Overview

About AERDF

AERDF (Advanced Education Research & Development Fund) is a national nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that advances scientific discovery & inventions that further learners’ brilliance and transform their PreK-12 futures. AERDF’s ambitious three-to-five-year initiatives (known as programs), funded with budgets up to $25 million, address major teaching and learning challenges and opportunities the public and private sector have historically ignored for Black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty in the United States. Since AERDF’s launch, its programs – currently focused on math, formative assessment, and reading – have engaged more than 20,000 students. Learn more about AERDF and our programs at https://aerdf.org.

Assessment for Good (AFG), which sits within AERDF, is an Inclusive R&D program focused on dramatically improving conditions for the academic, emotional, and social wellbeing of learners aged 8 through 13, with a special focus on Black and Latinx populations. By leveraging an asset-based approach to assessment, relevant information that values the diversity of student and educator experiences can be used to create an environment that is rich in opportunities to thrive.

Role Summary

AFG is currently organized around a set of technical prototypes and tech-free solutions spanning six core areas of learner wellbeing (Emotional Development, Engagement, Belonging, Executive Function, Learning Time, Social Development). Generating insights is at the heart of AFG’s work. AFG is building prototypes to generate insights to change the field of learning science. We are seeking a Senior Product Manager to help advance this work within the Product Team.

Reporting to the Director of Strategy, you will help lead the development of one of our products and support the execution of one of the products. You’ll be responsible for translating the vision of each prototype release outlined in project briefs into a reality by working with the contract design and engineering teams for that prototype. You will work closely with Product’s UX researcher to integrate user research and testing insights into product decisions and our Data Manger to design products with an eye toward data privacy. You’ll collaborate closely with our Research team to solicit their thought partnership, review, and approval of the product at each step. Lastly, you’ll also work closely with the Implementation team to ensure school and community partners can successfully implement our products.

A few notes about what makes product development at AERDF and AFG unique:

• As an R&D program, product development is driven by research hypotheses. The purpose of our products is to generate insights to advance the field of learning sciences. This means that our product goals and metrics are tied to AFG’s ability to gather insights toward the program’s research hypotheses. 
• As an inclusive R&D program, there are many different types of stakeholders involved in each part of the product development process: academic researchers, learners, educators, caregivers, designers, engineers, psychometricians, and more. The product development process requires close collaboration with all these different types of stakeholders.
• We take student data privacy seriously at AERDF and hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. Therefore, all data collection activities for product development are governed by IRB and follow strict protocols to maintain student privacy.

This role may be a limited-time position that will end at the end of 2026 when AFG's program with AERDF ends. We will re-evaluate extending this position at that time.

AERDF is a fully remote organization, and employees may work anywhere in the United States.

We are deeply committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. People of all backgrounds and identities, particularly those with the lived experience of the students and communities we serve, are encouraged to apply.  Please do not hesitate to apply even if you do not meet all of the qualifications.

Core Responsibilities

• Own end to end management of product development for one of AFG’s products
• Manage Product’s contract R&D partners
• Gather, prioritize, and write requirements for other products
• Support the end to end development of other products, including contributing to ideation and product solutions, management of project timelines, conducting user testing with students, facilitating communication between design & engineering and other stakeholders, and QA testing and prioritizing defects.
• Help prepare data files to ensure they meet the standards for import into the data warehouse that power the prototypes. Work closely with the engineering and research teams to identify, resolve, and document data discrepancies.
• Support the development and execution of AI strategy for each product
• Support preparation for penetration testing and privacy reviews from third-party organization
• Identify and execute improvements in the product development process
• Partner with AFG’s implementation team to support the accurate, safe, and timely facilitation of data sharing between AFG and school partners to enable successful implementation of products
• Mange timelines and track progress to goals across the product to to achieve quarterly and annual OKRs
• Travel up to 30% for in-person team meetings, retreats, partner visits, research implementation, convenings, and conferences as it is safe to do so. This percentage may fluctuate across the year depending upon our implementation needs. 

Professional Qualifications:

• Professional Qualifications
• At least 5 years’ of product development experience in K-12 education
• Experience building 0-1 products
• Ideally, experience working with Black and Latinx communities
• Proven ability to work autonomously, meeting deadlines and delivering independently
• Highly detailed oriented
• Ability to apply user insights, data, and statistical analyses to inform decisions

Personal Characteristics:

• Mission-driven and believe deeply in the transformative power that asset-based paradigms can have in disrupting educational inequity.
• Comfort navigating ambiguity and entrepreneurial drive to achieve goals in a fast-paced environment
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, particularly through productivity tools (Slack, Asana, Figma, Jira, Airtable)
• Demonstrated ability to be resourceful, curious, and innovative
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve product challenges
• Strong project management skills

Compensation Expectations

We offer a competitive compensation package including base salary and comprehensive benefits.  AERDF is a remote and flexible work environment. Our base compensation levels vary depending on location, experience, and qualifications.

The base salary range for this role is $97,830 to $141,310.

• For the states of California and New York, the base salary range is: $105,950 to $141,310.
• For the state of Washington, the base salary range is: $93,725 to $125,005.
• For the states of Colorado, Hawaii, and Nevada, the base salary range is: $89,650 to $119,570.