Senior Technical Software Product Manager

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future-consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Worksclosely with cross functional team of stakeholders, end-users, engineers, enterprise architects, and product leaders to understand the problems to solve, help drive the product vision and define requirements. Plays a key role in the software development process, bridging the gap between technical expertise and product strategy.
• Creates shared outcomes with multiple teams to deliver impact for customers.
• Definesproduct release strategies,ensuring the readiness of the various business partners.
• Recognized expert fortheirproduct, demonstrating mastery of the current platform with an deep understanding of gaps that informtheirnear-term product roadmap and helps to establish long-term strategy.
• Manages expectations by understanding when initiatives are at risk and proactively communicating with stakeholders.
• Leads and presentsin quarterly planning activities.
• Ensuresproduct quality by testing software features to ensure they satisfy the acceptance criteria and work with stakeholders and end users to coordinate user acceptance testing activities.
• Mentors and guides newer Product Managers.
• Leads research efforts to distill clarity from ambiguity and develops data collection strategies that identify the right outcomes for measuring success.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Possess a deep understanding and technical background in Service Oriented Architecture.
• Understands the scope of cloud computing and how to work with software architecture to identify the best practices to deliver high-scale platforms, built for reliability, sustainability, and addressing security vulnerabilities.
• An ability to create design artifacts that provide visual and narrative detail of architectural requirements, decisions, and designs to provide linkage between architecture, engineering, infrastructure, enterprise security, and feature-driven product teams.
• Able to easily communicate technical issues and business requirements and value-based outcomes that are required to address platform scale specifications.
• Develop technology modernization roadmaps that enable constant iterative improvements that correspond with operational and business requirements of the university.
• Understand and learn the nature of a legacy enterprise platform architecture with all of the nuances required to build bridges for future capabilities while maintaining current operational excellence.

Competencies:

Organizational, Operational, and/or Student Impact:

• Follows technical/ business processes; helps support change when necessary.
• Executes complex, specialized technical projects/assignments.
• Responsible for major or many components in the area of expertise.
• Limit errors to prevent impact to client operations, costs, or schedules.

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field or equivalent.
• 7 years of deep technical software experience in engineering, design, architecture, and enterprise integration.
• Experience working in Agile environments.
• Excellent presentation, written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong passion for exploring and understanding large scale cloud platform requirements.
• Leadership instincts with a positive team building approach.
• Strong problem-solving skills are necessary to address technical challenges and make critical decisions regarding software architecture and development.

• Communicates with parties within and outside of the university (e.g., customers, vendors, etc.)
• Works to influence parties within and outside of the job function at an operational level regarding policies, procedures, and practices.
• A deep understanding of software architecture principles, design patterns, and best practices is essential. Knowledge of various programming languages, databases, cloud technologies, and software development methodologies is also required.
• Responsible for providing guidance, coaching, and training to other employees within the technical area.
• The ability to think strategically about product architecture, align it with business goals, and make decisions that have a long-term impact on product development and success.
• Responsible for managing significant/complex technical projects at this level, involving delegation of work and review of work products.
• Individual meets department and personal goals with little direction/ supervision.
• Leads key technical projects, programs and may facilitate leadership and development of technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in relevant field (Master's or PhD).
• Experience in Education Technology.
• Experience in large enterprise platforms and integrations.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

How to apply: apply online

Full-time Regular Positions(FT classification, standard working hours = 40)

This is a full-time, regular position that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

The University is an equal opportunity employer.All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.