Technical Product Manager

Technical Product Manager

Description

We are hiring for a skilled Technical Product Manager to join our Technical Services Research & Development team. The successful candidate will play a key role in bridging the gap between technical teams and business stakeholders, ensuring smooth and effective product development. This role involves leading product strategy, gathering requirements, and coordinating with cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality software solutions.

Responsibilities

Product Vision and Strategy:

• Lead the product vision and strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs.
• Evaluate market trends and competitor products to identify opportunities for innovation and enhancement.
• Monitor product performance and gather data-driven insights to inform future features and improvements.

Requirements Elicitation and Roadmap Management:

• Gather requirements from stakeholders and translate them into actionable user stories, acceptance criteria, and technical specifications.
• Prioritize and maintain the product backlog and roadmaps, balancing customer needs with business goals.
• Define sprint goals and release plans for the development team.

Team Collaboration and Communication:

• Act as the primary interface between technical teams and business units, ensuring clear communication and understanding of product goals.
• Communicate product updates and progress to stakeholders effectively, including conducting presentations and briefings.
• Foster a culture of collaboration and innovation.

Project Execution and Delivery:

• Monitor project progress, proactively addressing risks and issues to ensure timely product delivery.
• Implement continuous improvement initiatives to improve product quality and team efficiency.
• Maintain project and product documentation.

Quality Assurance and Testing:

• Work with developers to define test plans and execute various verification and validation tests (e.g., functional, regression, usability, performance).
• Review test results to ensure quality standards are met and software is release-ready.

Customer Engagement:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for customer interactions related to product features and functionality.
• Gather and incorporate feedback from customers, building relationships to understand needs and preferences.

Location:

• Hybrid in McLean, VA

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; Master's degree preferred.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in product management or a similar role within a technical environment.
• Proven experience in Agile methodologies and managing product development lifecycles.
• Strong technical background and understanding of software development processes.
• Experience gathering requirements, creating user stories, and managing backlog prioritization.
• Proficient in using project management tools such as the Atlassian Suite (Jira, Confluence) or similar (Aha!, MS Project).
• Excellent problem-solving skills, with a keen ability to analyze data and make informed decisions.
• Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills for effective cross-team collaboration.
• Ability to handle multiple projects with competing deadlines, maintaining a strong focus on priorities.
• Experience designing data visualizations that inform performance measurement.
• Familiarity with web and/or mobile application development.
• Understanding of UI/UX design principles.
• Experience creating mockups and wireframes.
• Certifications in Agile methodologies (e.g., Certified Scrum Product Owner).

Preferred Skills:

• Familiarity with cloud-based technologies and modern software architectures.
• Experience with one or more of the following:
  • JavaScript (React), CSS, Python
  • AWS (S3, EC2, DynamoDB, RDS, SQS, Lambda, Athena, SageMaker), Azure
  • Tableau, SQL
• Knowledge of DevOps pipelines

Clearance Requirement:

• US Citizenship required; the ability to obtain a security clearance may be required.