At GAF, we cover more than buildings. We cover each other. No matter what role, tenure, or track, under this roof you are empowered to be there for your teammates, your customers, and especially your community. Under this roof, we don’t back down from hard work– we support one another in pursuit of something bigger. We define the future while leading the present. And under this roof, we own our opportunities. Becoming the market leader only happens when everyone feels they have the opportunity, and the support, to thrive. We are GAF. And under this roof, we protect what matters most.
Job Summary
This position will conceive, define, test, deliver, monitor, and refine digital products in the market to maximize business impact. Conduct customer research, and work with key stakeholders across business and technology to develop and convey product vision. Individuals will also work with product teams to deliver and sustain the end-to-end customer experience.
Product Management Directors will be the arbiter across different stakeholder groups to identify the key priorities within the product areas. Product owners will report to the Product Management Directors for each of the identified product teams.
A unique mix of skills including business acumen, strong time management and prioritization, excellent communication both verbal and written, and the ability to lead through collaboration with effective stakeholder management. Individuals must also be able to work effectively with a wide range of teams — from business leaders to delivery teams — driving product success without breaking the self-organizing culture that makes lean and agile delivery organizations successful.
Product Management Directors need to code-switch effectively, fit in with different groups, and have enough technical knowledge to engage effectively with product teams. They must also understand technical issues well enough to make the right decisions about when to prioritize a new feature over reducing technical debt or improving resiliency. In either case, the customer experience is most important to this individual.
Essential Duties
Establish and maintain relationships with the key business and technology stakeholders who the company’s executive team has given the budget and authority to fund product development and make decisions regarding product capabilities and priorities. Extend this to external stakeholders when vendor or partner/ecosystem relationships matter to product success.Perform (internal or external) customer research (in partnership with Stakeholders) by means of including surveys, product analytics, market research, interviews, hackathons, online forums, or other cost-effective means of gaining insight into the "voice of the customer." Use this insight to define the customer segments that the product will target, to understand those customers' goals, and how they would gain value from product capabilities.Perform competitive analysis on the alternatives that target customers might use, so as to understand what capabilities and qualities the product must have to attract customers away from those alternatives — and keep them satisfied.Facilitate and drive alignment among key stakeholders, supplying customer and market research and analytics to lead them to converge on a product strategy, vision and roadmap. This will help the business achieve its goals and objectives, according to a shared view of product priorities. Part of defining the roadmap is defining a release strategy, from early prototypes, through minimum viable product (MVP), to the first and subsequent releases. This is subject to frequent change as with any agile delivery process.Work within the product budget established in consultation with business sponsors and product-line management by balancing resources across customer and market research, competitive analysis, vision development, and prototyping, but primarily to sustain product teams to deliver and maintain the product.Work with key stakeholders to make frequent and dynamic prioritization decisions based on the latest product analytics, product team metrics and customer feedback. Define, track and communicate key product performance indicators as required to inform this process, and track business results.Work with key stakeholders to develop and refine business and pricing models for the product, whether directly (through a subscription, for example) or indirectly (based on advertising, or internal).Bring the product to market by ensuring the company is prepared to deliver and service the product throughout its life cycle. When serving internal customers, product managers should ensure that the organization is prepared to deliver and support the entire business capability (including all of its human, organizational, process and physical aspects, such as training for call-center agents).Continually monitor and refine the product while in market. As product teams mature in their use of DevOps, and take responsibility for running what they build, product managers perform the functions of service management in addition.Act as the "keeper (and communicator) of the vision" to translate the product strategy and vision developed with business stakeholders into what the product team must bear in mind every day to ensure they are building the right product.Define the product roadmap based on business outcomes. Product managers operate at the level of defining which business capabilities the product should have, and what business outcomes those capabilities should achieve, but not at the level of actually writing "user stories."Collaborate closely with product delivery teams. The product owner and Scrum Master on each team are primarily responsible for day-to-day coordination of backlog priorities and allocation of work to the team, but the product manager should stay in regular contact (weekly or more often). This will help the team to make decisions informed by the product vision and budget, as well as to give regular feedback on sprint demos and other reviewable features. Some product managers go as far as regularly testing the latest daily or weekly build, and are often able to find defects that nobody else has been able to spot.Collaborate and coordinate with other product managers within the product line, to avoid duplication and manage dependencies. Product managers also assist interdependent teams in synchronizing their work so that, when trade-offs have to be made, they are made consistent with the product management team's view of the overall priorities for the product line or platform. Platforms also require product management, so some of the product managers in this conversation will be responsible for managing the strategy and roadmap for their platform, based on the requirements and roadmaps of all the products that depend upon it.Coordinate with other stakeholders such as business, data and IT architects to align product and platform architectures and capabilities according to agreed goals for nonfunctional requirements. Platform product managers will be especially key to this conversation, as architecture decisions at the platform level have broad impact and significance for the success of many products. Product managers advocate for nonfunctional requirements and make sure that technical debt receives sufficient priority relative to functional requirements, in order to ensure success for the product throughout its entire life cycle, instead of just maximizing the functionality of the first release.Collaborate and coordinate with innovation teams to manage the flow of new ideas and product capabilities into one or more product lines.
Under This Roof We Require
Bachelor’s Degree Arts/Sciences (BA/BS)10+ years of relevant experience in IT and business/industry or government (in the business domain in which the product will exist) required3+ years in diverse roles of increasing responsibilities across business and IT, although a business-only career is acceptable if business roles include sufficient technology focus to equip the candidate to communicate effectively with delivery teams requiredDemonstrable experience of engaging executives and other stakeholders to support important business decisions.
Under This Roof We Also Value
Bachelor’s Degree Arts/Sciences (BA/BS) in computer science or business administration PreferredDemonstrable knowledge of the product management discipline.Basic familiarity with the principles of design thinking, and lean and agile software delivery.3+ years working in or with lean and agile software delivery teams.3+ years working with design professionals, within a design thinking process, including as an assistant in the user experience design process.
Travel Requirements: 30 - 50%
How We Protect What Matters Most:1. We offer a wide range of health insurance options that include medical, dental, and vision for you and your family. 2. Our Family-Building benefits support the many different journeys to fertility and parenthood. 3. Our robust 401K plan includes an employer match contribution with your pre-tax and/or Roth contributions. 4. Other exciting programs and perks are available to help employees achieve work-life balance, including (but not limited to) a wellness program, free financial coaching, a referral program, and product rebates when purchased for an employee’s primary residence. 5. Professional growth and development are very important to us! We offer internal training programs and courses, as well as a generous tuition reimbursement program. 6. We put diversity and inclusion into action with our Employee Resource Groups, which unite employees based on common perspectives, identities, demographic factors, or out of a desire to be an ally.
GAF complies with federal, state, and local disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact HR Services at 833-HR-XPERT.
We believe our employees are our greatest resource. We offer competitive salary, benefits, 401k, and vacation packages for all full time permanent positions. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and GAF, Standard Logistics, SGI, and Siplast are proud to be affirmative action employers. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. If applying for positions in the U.S., must be eligible to work in the U.S. without need for employer sponsored visa (work permit).