Technical Product Owner, Sports

Title: Technical Product Owner, Sports

Employment Type: Full-time

Location: New York, NY 

First Look:

The Arena Group is looking for a Technical Product Owner with a passion for sports and a background in digital media publishing. In this role, you will lead the development of digital products, working closely with teams across the company to improve user experience and drive revenue growth. You’ll turn business goals into technical tasks, prioritizing work for development teams while ensuring everything stays on track with our objectives of growth and audience engagement.

This role requires collaboration with editorial, operations, design, marketing, and technology teams, managing products from idea to launch and ongoing improvements. We’re looking for someone comfortable in a fast-paced environment who can help drive innovation and achieve the company’s financial goals. 

The Arena Group’s expected annualized base salary range for this position is currently $150,000 - $190,000. Actual salaries will vary based on multiple factors including location, education, experience and other factors permitted by law.  The listed salary range is but one component of The Arena Group’s total compensation and benefits available to its employees. 

Please note: due to the volume of applications we receive, only applicants selected for consideration will be contacted. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S., and we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

What You’ll Do:

• Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with key stakeholders across GM, editorial, research, marketing, monetization, UX, and more to define and align on the product vision and outcomes for all sports brands.

• Product Roadmap Development: Create and maintain a comprehensive product roadmap that aligns with the product vision, detailing features, timelines, and resource allocations.

• Requirement Gathering & Prioritization: Collect input from cross-functional teams and translate it into actionable product requirements. Prioritize key features within the roadmap to maximize impact.

• Sprint Management: Lead and manage vertical engineering sprints, including creating and prioritizing stories, defining acceptance criteria, conducting functional reviews, and running ceremonies such as standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives.

• KPI Definition & Monitoring: Establish and track product success metrics that align with the company’s North Star. Regularly communicate KPI status updates to stakeholders.

• User Experience & Research: Partner with UX and research teams to gather consumer insights, ensuring the product delivers exceptional user experiences. Proactively communicate findings and align teams on product goals.

• Vendor Management: Oversee vendor performance, identify new vendors, and make trade-offs that optimize product and business outcomes.

• Update and enhance site content and features using a content management system (CMS) 

What You’ll Bring:

• Curious & Analytical: You thrive on tackling challenging and ambiguous tasks. You seek to fully understand problems from multiple angles before formulating solutions. Your curiosity drives you to dig deep into issues, ensuring that decisions are based on comprehensive analysis.

• User-Centric: You prioritize the user in every decision, leveraging market research and insights to create compelling business cases that drive product success.

• Technically Proficient: You serve as the critical interface between business stakeholders and engineering teams, translating business goals into technical requirements. You possess the technical acumen to collaborate with engineers, delve into complex technical concepts, and make informed decisions that balance progress with stability. Your experience in managing B2C SaaS products with large user bases is essential, along with a deep understanding of APIs.

• Detail-Oriented & Data-Driven: You have a strong data-driven approach, with the ability to perform your own data analysis through basic database query skills. You focus on the details that matter, ensuring that every decision is backed by data.

• Exceptional Communicator: You excel in conveying complex concepts in clear, concise language, ensuring that all stakeholders understand the implications. As the voice of the customer, you effectively synthesize user needs and communicate them to internal teams.

Bonus Points if you have: 

• Front-end and/or Back-end development experience 

• Experience with technical SEO audits and knowledgeable regarding structured data and schema markup

• Log file analysis and page speed optimization 

• Content workflow automation. Experience in automating content workflows within CMS platforms, using tools like Zapier, Integromat, or custom scripts to streamline content publishing, approval, and syndication processes

• SEO-Friendly CMS configuration. Ability to configure CMS platforms for optimal SEO performance, including setting up SEO-friendly URL structures, managing redirects, and ensuring proper meta tag management.

• Experience with large-scale software architecture, networking, distributed systems, and UNIX/Linux environments.

• Solid understanding of data structures and algorithms 

• Large-scale, large-user base website development experience 

• Data mining, machine learning, AI, statistics, information retrieval, linguistic analysis 

Snapshot of Benefits:

• Medical, Dental and, Vision Coverage

• Retirement Savings Plan (401K), with company match

• Flexible Spending Account (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)

• Commuter Benefits

• Reimbursement for business cell phone use per company policy

• Unlimited Paid Time Off

• Paid Parental Leave

• 12 Paid Holidays

About Us:

The Arena Group (NYSE American: AREN) is an innovative technology platform and media company with a proven cutting-edge playbook that transforms media brands. Our unified technology platform empowers creators and publishers with tools to publish and monetize their content, while also leveraging quality journalism of anchor brands like TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal and Athlon Sports to build their businesses. The company aggregates content across a diverse portfolio of brands, reaching over 100 million users monthly. Visit us at thearenagroup.net and discover how we are revolutionizing the world of digital media.

The Arena Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.