Product Lifecycle Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Salary: 80K - 110K

Department: Product
Location: Northwest Florida
Work Arrangement: Onsite only. Remote and hybrid work arrangements are not available for this position.

Updated Posting Note: This position has been relisted and updated to reflect clarified role expectations, reporting structure, and onsite requirements.

What will you do?

The Product Lifecycle Manager supports the Product Department by helping product work move clearly and intentionally through idea evaluation, validation, definition, readiness, release support, and post-launch follow-up. This role reports directly to the Director of Product and works closely with Product, Engineering, UI/UX, CXP, Marketing, Operations, department directors, and executive leadership.

This position is designed for someone who can operate in ambiguity, ask the right questions, challenge assumptions constructively, and help teams move from open-ended ideas to clear, actionable decisions. The Product Lifecycle Manager must be able to understand technical tradeoffs, product priorities, customer impact, operational readiness, and business needs while communicating clearly with both technical and non-technical audiences.

This is not a traditional Product Manager, Scrum Master, Project Manager, Technical Writer, or Software Engineering role. It is a lifecycle clarity, product readiness, and cross-functional alignment role that requires strong judgment, technical fluency, direct communication, and the ability to use process as a practical guardrail rather than a rigid blocker.

How youll make an impact

The Product Lifecycle Manager helps TalkingParents scale product decision-making by improving clarity, readiness, documentation, and alignment across teams. This role creates value by helping teams understand what is being considered, what is in scope, what risks or dependencies exist, and what decisions are needed before work moves too far into implementation.

By serving as a liaison between department directors, Product, Engineering, customer-facing teams, operational teams, and executive leadership, this position helps reduce confusion, prevent avoidable rework, improve release readiness, and support thoughtful product decisions that align with TalkingParents business goals, customer needs, technical realities, and operational priorities.

Position Responsibilities

• Support product initiatives through evaluation, validation, definition, readiness, release, and post-launch follow-up.
• Track initiative status, open questions, decisions, dependencies, risks, ownership, and readiness concerns.
• Review product documents, scope materials, requirements, release notes, and stakeholder communications for clarity, completeness, and consistency.
• Help Product, Engineering, and leadership clarify objectives, assumptions, scope boundaries, user impact, technical considerations, operational needs, and success criteria.
• Identify unclear scope, missing information, unresolved questions, ownership gaps, technical constraints, operational risks, and downstream impacts before they create confusion or rework.
• Ensure lifecycle documentation clearly captures scope, open questions, risks, dependencies, assumptions, decisions, and future considerations.
• Serve as a bridge between Product, Engineering, UI/UX, CXP, Marketing, Operations, department directors, and executive leadership.
• Translate product, technical, operational, customer-impact, and business context for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ask direct, thoughtful questions that surface risks, tradeoffs, feasibility concerns, customer impact, business impact, and operational needs.
• Challenge assumptions and provide clear, professional feedback when scope, timing, readiness, direction, or expectations are misaligned.
• Support release readiness by helping teams understand documentation, customer-facing impacts, risks, dependencies, support needs, and operational considerations before launch.
• Reinforce scope boundaries and identify when new ideas, late requests, or added requirements need separate evaluation.
• Maintain lifecycle templates, documentation standards, handoff expectations, readiness checkpoints, and lightweight process guidance.
• Use lifecycle processes and AI-assisted tools to improve clarity, consistency, accountability, documentation quality, risk identification, and stakeholder communication.

Position Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in software product lifecycle management, product operations, technical product management, SaaS operations, software engineering, technical program coordination, or a related cross-functional software role.
• Technical fluency in modern B2C SaaS environments, including full-stack concepts, system dependencies, technical tradeoffs, implementation constraints, release considerations, and operational risk.
• Experience working with software engineering teams to clarify requirements, evaluate feasibility, surface risks, and support product decisions before implementation.
• Ability to review product, scope, requirements, release, and stakeholder documentation for clarity, completeness, accuracy, consistency, and usability.
• Ability to identify unclear scope, missing assumptions, unresolved questions, ownership gaps, dependencies, risks, readiness concerns, and downstream impacts.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical, product, operational, customer-impact, and business information for different audiences.
• Comfortable delivering direct, professional feedback, challenging assumptions, surfacing risks, and explaining when a request, timeline, scope item, or approach needs further evaluation.
• Comfortable working through ambiguity, evolving priorities, incomplete information, and changing business needs while helping teams move toward clarity and practical next steps.
• Strong judgment in knowing when to clarify, document, escalate, align stakeholders, reinforce scope boundaries, recommend further evaluation, or move forward with the best available information.
• Ability to use processes, templates, and lifecycle checkpoints as flexible guardrails without creating unnecessary rigidity or blocking progress.
• Experience working across business, technical, operational, customer-facing, and leadership teams to improve shared understanding and support aligned decisions.
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to track lifecycle status, documentation needs, decisions, risks, dependencies, and follow-up items across multiple initiatives.

Strongly Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience as a software engineer, full-stack developer, technical product manager, product operations manager, technical program manager, solutions-oriented product partner, or similar role within a B2C SaaS environment.
• Hands-on experience working with frontend, backend, mobile, APIs, cloud infrastructure, integrations, data, release management, or technical operations.
• Product management experience that includes technical feasibility review, lifecycle readiness, release planning, cross-functional stakeholder alignment, and direct partnership with software engineering teams.
• Experience supporting product teams in a company with complex user workflows, sensitive customer needs, operational dependencies, compliance considerations, or customer-facing records.
• Experience helping teams define scope, evaluate tradeoffs, prepare for release, document decisions, and align stakeholders before work moves into implementation.
• Experience working with executive stakeholders, department directors, and cross-functional leadership to communicate risks, dependencies, decisions, and readiness concerns clearly.

Important Note for Applicants

General product management experience alone may not meet the expectations of this role. Candidates should be prepared to demonstrate how they have worked directly with technical teams, evaluated software product tradeoffs, supported lifecycle readiness, challenged assumptions constructively, and helped cross-functional teams move from ambiguity to clear product decisions.

Compensation Note

The posted compensation range reflects candidates who meet the full scope of this role, including the technical fluency, SaaS product lifecycle experience, and software delivery understanding outlined above. Candidates who do not meet the technical fluency expectations may still be considered if their communication, judgment, organization, ownership, and cross-functional coordination skills align with the success of the role. Compensation for those candidates would be set up to $65,000 annually.

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: Salary or wages listed on Indeed.com or TheLadders.com are not based on actual data for this job listing. The salary ranges that any third party provides with the listing on their websites are based on their own salary calculators and are not accurate for the Northwest Florida area.

*Candidate(s) who are offered a position will be required to successfully pass a pre-employment background check and drug screening.

*Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the US and not require sponsorship now or in the future.

*TalkingParents is an Equal Opportunity Employer

*No outsourcing or recruiting firms, please