Product Manager

The Office of Digital Innovation is looking for a product manager to work on a variety of projects for the State of California. Example projects include improving or redesigning foundational digital processes such as the way that people access services, apply to benefits, navigate licensing, or use digital forms. These projects will often focus on using technology and service design to improve services for communities with critical needs, such as people not online, disadvantaged populations small businesses or seniors. The product manager may work or advise on projects serving multiple agency needs at a time.

The ODI Product Manager will be responsible for 

• Crafting product strategy: Builds roadmaps, as well as setting vision for the development, operation, and continual improvement of products. Develops documentation and communication patterns to foster consensus around product vision while building trust in iterative processes and comfort with modern software development best practices. Ties products to broader outcomes. Owns the product backlog, defining milestones and goals into sprints, and sets the day-to-day priorities for the team.
• Translating user needs into product features: Articulates user needs by interpreting user research, web analytics and user feedback data to make user-centered decisions for products. Tracks and tests assumptions around user/feature needs. Reports on how products are performing against user needs and other success measures, and scopes iterative changes to products based on changing user needs.
• Managing iterative development and fostering healthy team momentum: Works collaboratively with the team to prioritize the backlog to fulfil the goals and outcomes on the product roadmap. Defines iterative releases on specific features/content areas as well how features and properties relate to each other; works with design and content to address structural improvements. Creates clarity for the development team through lightweight Scrum practices.
• Stakeholder management: Drives decisions, while building support with technical, data, comms, and leadership partners across the state government. Presents the problems (technical and otherwise) the team is trying to solve to a variety of audiences. Attends regular meetings with key Government partners such as the California Department of Technology, the Governor’s Office, California Government Operations Agency, and agency customer like the California Department of Public Health) and other state entities to ensure work is strategically aligned between multiple teams and delivers valuable outcomes for people and the state government.

Key qualifications and skills

• Experience managing complex software products
  • Has worked on products with large, diverse user bases
  • Has the ability to identify key problems (problem definition) to scope the product needs and prioritize.
  • Deeply familiar with the dependencies and constraints involved in developing and launching accessible web and mobile products
  • Proven experience in technical product management, including data products, security and systems architecture improvements.
• Experience with bureaucracy or government
  • Comfortable including accessibility and compliance considerations at all stages of the product lifecycle
  • Able to bring together multiple teams working on a single product or series of closely related products
  • Adept at navigating internal governance processes and supporting rapidly changing information and user needs
• Stakeholder management
  • Skilled at building long-term cross-organizational relationships and negotiating conflicting needs or incentives
  • Able to proactively, clearly, and kindly manage expectations, facilitate consensus, and advocate for user needs
• Team leadership
  • Able to create clarity for multi-disciplinary teams amidst changing priorities and information (Ability to deal with change and ambiguity and be able to articulate or set direction for the product and the team)
  • Experience working in user centered design (UX design, UX research, Analytics/insights)
  • Experience fostering an inclusive, equitable, and resilient team that delivers quality user-centered products
• Plus If you have experience or exposure in crisis management

Values Alignment
The successful candidate must value the following:

• Employing a human-centered approach to their work
• Working collaboratively while maintaining ownership of your role and responsibilities
• Prioritizing all Californians in decision making and messaging