Senior Product Manager, Thirty Million Words
The University of Chicago

Department
BSD SUR - OHNS: Thirty Million Words

About the Department
The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago develops, tests, and implements evidence-based interventions designed to promote very young children's cognitive and social-emotional development, with a priority placed on that of children living in poverty. TMW Center interventions are designed to be overlaid onto existing health, education, and social service systems working at scale in a given community in order to meet families where they already are. The TMW Center has a robust research and development strategy that includes further development and testing of TMW interventions; harnessing technology to support behavior change, intervention engagement, and analysis; and furthering strategies to engage parents in the TMW Center's interventions across the health, early learning, and social service sectors.

Job Summary
In collaboration with TMW Center Leadership, the Senior Product Manager supports the development of, and executes the strategy and roadmap for, TMW Center's technology-based interventions, including wearable research device. The job manages a team of professional staff responsible for software support and development. Creates standards and operating procedures in the analysis, design, development, debugging, and modification of computer code for end user applications and production support. Manages the development and implementation of applications and user-interfaces using a variety of software applications, techniques, and tools.

Responsibilities

• Leads the end-to-end product development process, ensuring delivery of high-quality end user apps for educators and parents.
  
• Builds strategic vision for productizing analytics capabilities to drive impact across various use cases.
  
• Supports new use case creation by working with internal and external stakeholders to define new requirements and enable required capabilities.
  
• Understands and interprets stakeholder feedback, analyzes user behavior and prioritizes features based on customer needs and organizational objectives.
  
• Manages the product backlog and makes data-driven decisions to optimize resource allocation and ensure predictable and timely releases.
  
• Drives cross-functional collaboration across hardware engineering, data science, software developers, and user experience to ensure initiatives are prioritized against TMW and wearable device leadership objectives.
  
• Facilitates stakeholder meetings and regular reports with leadership to ensure work streams, timelines, and roadmaps are aligned to achieve product and project goals.
  
• Drives collaboration and alignment across other cross-functional teams.
  
• Assesses scope and timelines, prepares project plans, identifies and resolves risk and mitigation to continuously prioritize execution against wearable device product objectives.
  
• Oversees and manages collaborators responsible for various elements of product development to ensure overall project timeliness, managing tradeoffs and stakeholder awareness.
  
• Trains and coaches individual product managers, as needed, in building systems and processes for efficient operations and provides ongoing feedback to improve project management skills and risk-trade-off decision making.
  
• Develops and refines processes to successfully shape and position wearable device for scaling and measurement in early education settings, ensuring that the wearable device interface integrates on-the-ground feedback and fidelity of implementation learnings.
  
• In collaboration with Leadership and others, helps develop strategy for scaling.
  
• Manages employees by establishing annual performance goals, allocating resources, assessing annual performance, and determining individual merit, incentive and/or promotional increases. Provides technical oversight and develops standards, guidelines, and processes for application systems.
  
• Creates plans to translate business requirements into well-designed applications while balancing user and business needs, technical competencies, industry developments, and time constraints.
  
• Advises decisions on project and infrastructure needs, including the evaluation of server technologies, languages, platforms, and frameworks. Develops timelines and project plans for the team.
  
• Formulates and defines specifications for complex installations, maintenance, and upgrades. Identifies and analyzes performance and capacity issues.
  
• Performs other related work as needed.
  

Minimum Qualifications

Education:
Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

Work Experience:
Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Experience:

• Prior experience working in product development and software development.
  

Preferred Competencies

• Ability to multi-task and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
  
• Excellent organizational skills, including strong attention to detail.
  
• Technical and/or analytics background.
  
• Proven ability to establish and stick to timelines.
  
• Problem-solving skills, including a strong ability to prioritize.
  
• Initiative and independent judgment.
  
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
  
• Demonstrated ability to build diverse relationships and manage professional workload with minimal supervision.
  

Application Documents

• Resume/CV (required)
  
• Cover Letter (required)
  

When applying, the document(s) MUSTbe uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.

Job Family
Information Technology

Role Impact
People Manager

Scheduled Weekly Hours
40

Drug Test Required

No

Health Screen Required

No

Motor Vehicle Record Inquiry Required

No

Pay Rate Type
Salary

FLSA Status
Exempt

Pay Range
$130,000.00 - $180,000.00
The included pay rate or range represents the University's good faith estimate of the possible compensation offer for this role at the time of posting.

Benefits Eligible
Yes
The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off. Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook.
In addition to the base pay posted above, this position may be eligible for N/A

Posting Statement

The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University's Notice of Nondiscrimination.

Staff Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-702-5800 or submit a request via Applicant Inquiry Form.

We seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest value on rigorous inquiry and encourages a diversity of perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, engagement, and exchange.

All offers of employment are contingent upon a background check that includes a review of conviction history. A conviction does not automatically preclude University employment. Rather, the University considers conviction information on a case-by-case basis and assesses the nature of the offense, the circumstances surrounding it, the proximity in time of the conviction, and its relevance to the position.

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