Sr Technical Product Manager, Data & Analytics, Platform  

Frontline Education is a pioneer of school administration software purpose-built for K-12 districts. We provide innovative, connected solutions for student and special programs, business operations, and human capital management with powerful data and analytics to empower educators and administrators. We earn the trust of K-12 leaders across the U.S. by serving as a consistently high-performing, forthright partner of school districts through every dimension of the company.  

We're a group of unique and talented individuals that love what we do who work with an appreciative and friendly customer base. We work hard to make our customers happy, but we like to have a good time in the process. We are a company that strives to think in terms of “we” instead of “me.” We believe in the philosophy of servant leadership and that it’s all about putting others first. We also value the balance between family and work.    

Position Vision/Objectives:  

This Senior Technical Product Manager will have both a strong technical product management background in addition to a highly technical background, possibly even a former engineer.  This role is pivotal to helping our organization scale, by helping lead key platform initiatives such as identity management, data warehousing, building reusable “core platform” components. This role will guide key areas of our infrastructure so that we can further scale our applications.  You will work with many different groups including with Development, Architecture, UX Design, Data Operations, and Customer Success. 

Our Data and Analytics portfolio includes five key product lines: 1) Budget Management & Financial Planning, 2) Location Analytics, 3) Comparative Analytics, 4) Student Analytics, and 5) Human Capital Analytics.  As the Platform TPM, you will be responsible for helping create a platform experience amongst all 5 of these products. 

Product Management Responsibilities: 

Product Strategy. Under the leadership of the Data and Analytics Pillar lead (Director of Product), driving product vision, roadmap, and strategy that delights customers and creates buy-in for the product vision   A holistic (GM) mindset. Engage with Frontline’s customers, services, and sales teams to understand requirements, and to ensure successful product delivery. Additionally, engages with Finance to ensure strategy aligns with Frontline’s financial targets.   Roadmap Planning. Champions the definition of creative, high quality, simple product roadmaps based on co-developed strategy and vision.  Owns Outcomes. Assumes business outcome and ownership of all direct and tangential product initiatives.  Collaborative Mindset. Collaborates with Product Owners and software engineers to turn functional specifications into next-generation business services.  Execution and Delivery. Leads the execution on the right features in terms of requirements, definition, quality and metrics for their product.  Stakeholder Management. Communicates with clarity across multiple stakeholders, collaborate with business partners and development teams, and influence decisions at all levels of the   User Experience, Systems Planning. Partner with the UX team through research and customer (internal and external) validation to ensure we are solving the problems in the right way 

Domain Knowledge and Expertise: 

Highly technical individual who understands web application architecture   Understand high level database concepts, data systems, data warehouses (ie/ Snowflake), and best practices on how these systems work together with highly data focused applications.  Understands strong architectural design patterns and how to build highly scalable systems with reusable components  Understands key web platform concepts including: Automation, Self-Service, Scalability, Security and Compliance, Abstraction and Standardization, Micro-service architecture, REST APIs, Containerization, Cloud based applications, etc.  Systems level thinking both within the Data and Analytics portfolio of products (4 products) and the entire Frontline portfolio (40 products) 

Operational leadership: 

Keeps team on track with deliverables and works to address any blockers – for example, supports change management of team adopting a new way of communicating the roadmap  Ensures reporting data is kept up to date for leadership & Stakeholders (Solution leaders, Director, CPO, Product Team) to inform on plans, status, progress of planned roadmap initiatives against KPI’s with both external and internal stakeholders   examples are roadmaps, release progress, launches, other as needed 

Position Requirements: 

Proven expertise leading cross-functional teams that together launch on-time and on-budget.  You will be required to showcase leadership, people management, project management, problem solving, and communication to both internal and external colleagues at scale.  A proven performer with strong intracompany relationships and the ability to directly and indirectly lead teams and projects.   Strong Product Management experience  Strong understanding of Agile Methodology  Demonstration of Leadership and management ability    Demonstration of ability to effectively perform the Product role, is data driven, process orientation, open to feedback and development “is coach-able”  Coordinate data/development projects and prioritize the ongoing work of those teams.  Evaluate and prioritize customer requirements, leveraging industry best practices and new innovations. Prioritize and manage the backlog for effective release and planning.  7+ years in Product Management designing and delivering world-class software products or equivalent experience.  Bachelor degree in a Business, Computer Science, engineering or related field, or equivalent professional experience. Masters degree or MBA is a plus. 

Is this the right opportunity for you?    

You love products and get excited about solving complicated, and often ambiguous problems, and having autonomy in decision making.   You understand that school districts need to easily plan, manage and analyze internal and external professional learning opportunities, and enable their employees to take an active role in their own learning.   You are a strong project manager that ensures all elements of a project are well coordinated to ensure a product releases that are timely and scope complete.    You can deliver intuitive, streamlined and easy to use solutions that don’t compromise on functionality or compliance.   You understand the value of UX and can work effectively in partnership with our User Experience team and solve problems the right way through research and validation  You are an engaging and outstanding communicator who excels at negotiating across cross-functional teams.    You’re an analytical thinker who can understand the impacts of new ideas to all parts of your solutions as well as how your solution behaves in a platform context.    You’re agreeable to occasional travel (< 5%) 

Preferred Skills and Experience 

K12 experience highly regarded.  Experience with a SaaS application preferably with infrastructure and platform experience  Familiarity with Reporting, Data & Analytics (BI) strategies and concepts  Basic knowledge of some key tools and technologies including: SQL, browser Developer Tools,  Postman, JSON and APIs.  Experience with Agile development methodologies.  Ability to translate market needs into Epics, User Stories and Acceptance Criteria.