Position: As a Product Manager at CharacterStrong, a leading EdTech company, you will play a pivotal role in driving the execution of innovative educational products from concept to completion. This seasoned professional will lead 1-2 cross-functional product teams, known as Squads, to bring meaningful educational solutions to life. You will work closely with the Development Leadership Team, stakeholders, and your Squads to define, plan, and execute product initiatives that impact learners and educators globally.
In this role, you’ll collaborate with the Squad’s Lead Engineer and UX/UI Designer to shape clear product requirements and ensure alignment with all stakeholders before overseeing the implementation process. Your ability to manage and prioritize the Squad’s backlog of tickets while advocating for your team’s capacity and resolving roadblocks will ensure the continuous delivery of high-impact features that improve educational outcomes.
At CharacterStrong, we are passionate about creating tools that make a difference in education. Your expertise in end-to-end project management and commitment to delivering top-tier EdTech solutions will be essential to our mission of transforming the way character education is delivered.
CharacterStrong’s Background & Mission:
CharacterStrong is a fast-paced education company that makes PreK-12 digital, social & emotional learning curricula and offers professional learning opportunities to support schools with implementation. There’s currently a team of more than 100 full-time employees and over 30 contractors and interns collaborating to bring this work to life. Our mission is to create a more loving world by equipping educators with tools to teach the critical social, emotional, and character skills necessary to foster a more empathetic, connected, and generous world. In less than 10 years, our aim is to have reached 50 million students and over 2 million educators. CharacterStrong continues to be ranked by INC. 5000 (2021, 2022, and 2024) as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the country.
At CharacterStrong, you will have the opportunity to positively impact education, both in the United States and internationally. CharacterStrong employees offer their innovation, dedication to excellence, and compassion to help produce transformational curricula and professional learning for educators.
CharacterStrong’s Company Values:
- We Practice Kindness - Exercising inclusion, care, and empathy with others, balancing honesty with compassion when having courageous conversations and engaging in kindness towards self.
- We Produce Excellence - Producing timely, quality results and consistently asking the question, “How can we make this 1% better?”
- We Take Ownership - Taking the initiative to drive work forward, demonstrating responsibility when things do not go according to plan, and being proactive in closing identified gaps.
- We Problem Solve - Identifying issues, analyzing for understanding, and taking action to implement the best possible solution.
Product Manager Responsibilities:
- Manage up to two Squads, prioritizing their workstreams, including initiative-related work and ongoing tasks, ensuring all work aligns with product and business goals.
- Triage incoming tickets, keeping the Squad’s backlog organized, up-to-date, and prioritized to reflect the needs of the business.
- Advocate for your Squad(s) by representing their capacity and progress in conversations with leadership and stakeholders, ensuring realistic expectations for delivery timelines.
- Oversee the lifecycle of features and products, ensuring they are continuously maintained, improved, and aligned with user and business needs.
- Act as the single source of truth for Squad priorities, ensuring all work within the Squad is aligned with company goals and managing trade-offs between competing priorities.
- Collaborate with the Leadership Team to understand the prioritization of initiatives on the product roadmap.
- Work alongside the Leadership Team and thrust owners in the Solution Discovery phase for prioritized initiatives by gathering requirements from stakeholders, users, and cross-functional teams. Conduct this work in close collaboration with the Squads’ Lead Engineer and UX/UI Designer.
- Collaborate with Development Leadership to continuously analyze user feedback and data in collaboration to identify patterns, prioritize improvements, and translate insights into actionable product enhancements.
- Collaborate with support and engineering teams to address critical bugs and customer issues promptly, ensuring product stability and customer satisfaction.
- Work with your Squads’ Lead Engineer and UX/UI Designer to define technical designs and mockups, and iterate on them with stakeholders until alignment is achieved.
- Own the success of initiatives by ensuring their smooth progression through the development lifecycle, identifying blockers, and elevating issues as needed to ensure timely and quality delivery.
- Lead Backlog Refinement sessions weekly with the squad to ensure tickets are ready for development, appropriately sized, and aligned with the team’s capacity.
- Attend daily stand-ups to provide clarity on tickets, unblock the team, and ensure alignment across the squad on daily priorities.
- Facilitate the weekly Strategic Sync with the Squads’ Lead Engineer and UX/UI Designer, preparing tickets for backlog refinement and ensuring all requirements, mockups, and technical designs are ready for estimation.
- Use data-informed insights to identify opportunities, set priorities, and measure the success of your efforts.
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in business, product management, or a related field; or equivalent experience.
- 3-5 years of experience in product management, preferably in a technology or EdTech environment.
- Experience working within an agile framework and knowledge of software development processes.
- Demonstrated ability to manage cross-functional teams and collaborate with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong skills in gathering and refining requirements, prioritizing work, and leading initiatives from conception through delivery.
- Familiarity with backlog management, ticket triage, and roadmap alignment.
- Proven ability to manage multiple squads or teams, balancing initiative work with ongoing priorities.
- Effective communication skills for presenting technical information and project progress to a wide variety of audiences.
- Experience in iterative development and working closely with design and engineering teams.
- Ability to analyze user feedback and data to identify patterns, prioritize improvements, and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
- Strong empathy for users in K-12 education settings and an ability to actively listen during interviews to uncover pain points and improvement areas.
- Comfort working in a fast-paced, iterative environment where priorities can shift based on user needs and business goals.
Salary & Benefits
- Starting Salary Range $120,000-150,000 commensurate with experience
- Ability to work remotely
- Annual bonus based on company performance
- New laptop computer and other needed equipment
- Annual Individual Budget for Professional Development of $1,000
- 401k Plan after 12 months of Employment
- Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance, Vision
- Paid Parental Leave after 12 months of employment for eligible employees
- 15 Paid Vacation Days, 8 Paid Sick Days, 14 Paid Company Holidays
Learn more about us at CharacterStrong.com