Software Product Manager - Science

Software Product Manager - Science

Job ID: 2013-19978
# of Positions: 1
Posted Date: 9/4/2013
Job Location: US-MA-Boston
Position Type: Regular Full Time
Category: Product Management

Overview

Pearson has one defining goal: to help people progress in their lives through learning. We champion innovation and we invest in models for education that deliver on our promise for effective, accessible, and personal learning from early literacy, college and career readiness to professional education, through data informed instruction and inventive applications for mobile and digital learning.

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, has global-reach and market leading businesses in education, business, and consumer publishing and is listed on the London and New York stock exchanges (UK: PSON; NYSE: PSO).

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, and a member of E-Verify. All qualified applicants, including minorities, women, veterans, and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

Responsibilities

SUMMARY - The Science Digital Product Management team oversees development of Pearson's market-leading learning applications for the Higher Education Science & Engineering market. This high-performing, cross-disciplinary team is responsible for end-to-end product planning and delivery, including: understanding market problems, gathering and prioritizing product requirements, performing user research and usability testing, creating detailed prototypes and user stories, planning releases and development iterations, and monitoring implementation to ensure successful semi-annual releases.

We are currently seeking a Software Product Manager to join our team in creating the next generation of Science learning products. This high-intensity, high-profile initiative will demand a high degree of flexibility and willingness to work hands-on to achieve aggressive near-term release targets with significant market potential.

As a Software Product Manager, you will act a liaison between the product development part of the organization and one of the best editorial teams in the educational publishing industry. You will learn what is and isn't working in how the subject of science/engineering is taught at the Higher-Education level and will work collaboratively to define simple, elegant, and effective digital teaching and learning experiences. You will work with other Product Managers to create prototypes and user stories for new product features, and with Content Developers to maximize the feature usage as they are delivered. You will also partner with Software Developers to scope, prioritize, implement, and deliver new product releases every six months and you will serve as a spokesperson and champion of the product with the sales channel and with key customers.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Identifies, prioritizes, and tracks stakeholder requirements and defines the scope for releases
- Represents the customer with the development team and the development team with the customer
- Work with other members of the product team, including designers, engineers, and systems architects to refine requirements to an appropriate level of detail for development and systems implementation. Activities to achieve this can include usability studies, data review, interviews and prototypes.
- Drive discussions between dependent development teams to reach implementation decisions that support BU product and customer needs
- Collaborates with User Interaction/Interface/Experience Team on creation, review, and approval of Web App UI specifications, prototypes, and designs
- Communicate roadmap and release plans to stakeholders
- Works with diverse partners to build consensus
- Confer with development teams on resource/cost estimating. Track spending and ensure project costs fall within approved budgets.
- May perform training on new features to ensure critical internal staff (sales reps, customer support and other product team members) is educated on new functionality
- Ensure that documentation for releases is accurate and timely
- Serves as a point of escalation for customer issues; triage requests for addressing by operational teams and funnel defects and requests for enhancements into the product development pipeline
- Understands and stays abreast of technology trends, requirements, and regulations in the Higher Education markets
- Manage other initiatives as assigned by executive management
- Other responsibilities may be assigned on an as-needed basis.

Relocation is not available for this position.

Qualifications

REQUIREMENTS, Skills, Knowledge & Capabilities:
- Bachelor's degree (advanced degree preferred) or equivalent
- 1-3 years of software product management experience, with demonstrated success defining and building excellent web-based products
- Excellent teamwork, communication, organizational, and leadership skills
- Experience in higher-education: teaching, publishing or technology a plus.
- Familiarity with the subject matter of one or more science/engineering disciplines (eg physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology) at the introductory college-level is a plus.
- This position requires travel to customer and non-customer sites in North America (10%).

Other:
- To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily and on time. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- This person must be able to sit or stand at a personal computer typing and reading for the majority of the work day.
- Ability to handle a high volume of work in a short period of time, handle multiple priorities simultaneously and operate in a demanding work environment is important.
- This person must be able to manage the budget for a project and complete all requirements within that given budget and be able to manage a personal travel and expense budget including completing and submitting all required forms.
- Reliable attendance and punctuality is critical to successful performance in this role.