Vice President, Product Operations

Overview

At PowerSchool, we are a dedicated team of innovators guided by our shared purpose of powering personalized education for students around the world. From the central office to the classroom to the home, PowerSchool supports the entire educational ecosystem as the global leader of cloud-based software for K-12 education. Our employees make it all possible, and a career with us means you’re joining a successful team committed to engaging, empowering, and improving the K-12 education experience everywhere.

The Head of Product Operations at PowerSchool is a strategic, operational, and crossfunctional executive responsible for architecting and scaling the systems, processes, analytics, and automations that enable a high-performing product organization. This leader partners closely with the CPO, R&D, Finance, Cloud Operations, and GTM teams to ensure the company delivers high-quality, high-impact products with operational excellence, customer-centricity, and financial discipline. This role owns Product Operations & Strategy end-to-end—driving alignment between product strategy, AI-enabled efficiencies, pricing and packaging, customer insights, segmentation analytics, and the operational rigor required to sustain growth and profitability across a multi-product SaaS platform.

Responsibilities

Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, this leader will own the operating model that connects product strategy, investment, planning, execution, commercialization, and performance. The role creates clarity across a complex portfolio, strengthens how decisions are made, and gives Product leaders the insight and structure needed to deliver measurable outcomes.

What You Will Lead

Product Strategy and Operating Model

• Translate Product strategy into a clear operating model that connects priorities, investment, roadmaps, capacity, execution, and outcomes.
• Lead annual and quarterly planning processes across Product, Engineering, Finance, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success.
• Establish practical operating rhythms, decision rights, and escalation paths that increase accountability and speed.

Portfolio Governance and Investment

• Create portfolio visibility for the CPO and executive leadership, including investments, dependencies, risks, and performance.
• Build consistent frameworks for new investment, acceleration, consolidation, continued investment, and product retirement.
• Partner with Finance and Product leaders to connect business cases, market opportunity, customer value, and expected returns.
• Strengthen prioritization across growth, customer commitments, innovation, technical investment, compliance, and strategic needs.

Monetization and Commercialization

• Partner across Product, Finance, Sales, and Marketing on pricing, packaging, monetization, and commercialization decisions.
• Establish consistent launch readiness and post-launch accountability for major product initiatives.
• Build lifecycle discipline from investment and development through growth, optimization, consolidation, and retirement.

Product Intelligence and Performance

• Create a common performance framework that connects product activity with customer and business outcomes.
• Develop executive reporting across adoption, engagement, retention, growth, financial performance, delivery predictability, and portfolio health.
• Help Product leaders identify underperformance early, understand root causes, and take corrective action.

Cross-Functional Execution and Leadership

• Act as a connective leader across Product, Engineering, Finance, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Services, and other functions.
• Remove systemic barriers that slow decisions or execution while preserving clear accountability within each Product team.
• Build and lead a high-performing Product Operations organization with strong capabilities in planning, analytics, portfolio management, commercialization, and operational excellence.
• Coach Product leaders in business-case discipline, outcome-based management, and effective portfolio decisions.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum of 15+ years of relevant and related work experience.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, or equivalent years of relevant work experience.
• Travel occasionally, up to 20-25%, for key moments such as team summits, training, customer meetings, company events, etc., with increased frequency during peak periods based on business demands.
• This position is subject to company on call policies which constitutes working hours outside of the normal workday as needed.
• Experience managing and leading functional areas or departments.
• 10+ years in B2B SaaS / Cloud product operations, product strategy, or product management, including senior leadership responsibilities.
• Experience operating within a $1B+ ARR, multi-product SaaS or Cloud Platform environment.
• Proven success building or scaling a Product Operations organization and supporting CPO leadership.
• Demonstrated track record improving product performance and customer satisfaction at scale.
• Deep familiarity with modern product & engineering tools (road-mapping, backlog, analytics, VOC, monitoring).
• Experience partnering closely with Customer Success, Support, Sales, and GTM teams serving enterprise or institutional customers.

Key Competencies

• Strategic Systems Thinker: Capable of designing operating models, not just individual processes.
• Highly Data Fluent: Adept at defining, instrumenting, interpreting, and operationalizing product and customer metrics.
• Program & Portfolio Management Excellence: Drives structured execution and ensures cross-functional follow-through.
• Stakeholder Leadership: Skilled at aligning Product, R&D, CS, Support, and GTM around shared priorities.
• Change Leadership: Drives adoption of new processes, tools, and ways of working across diverse teams.
• Customer-Obsessed: Anchors decisions in customer outcomes

Personal Attributes

• Bias for Action, Operates with Urgency, & Ownership: Comfortable rolling up sleeves; eliminates operational blockers.
• Structured Operator: Brings clarity, predictability, and order in ambiguous or highpressure situations.
• Low-Ego Collaborator: Builds trust and strong partnerships across executives and frontline teams.
• High Integrity & Executive Presence: Communicates transparently, credibly, and with gravitas.
• Growth Mindset: Continuously improves processes, teams, and self; embraces iteration and learning.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation & Benefits

PowerSchool offers the following benefits:

• Comprehensive Insurance Coverage (including Medical, Dental, Vision, Pharmacy benefits, Life Insurance and AD&D)
• Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts
• Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability
• Comprehensive 401(k) plan
• Generous Parental Leave
• Unrestricted paid time off (known as Discretionary Time Off - DTO)
• Wellness Program, including ClassPass & Employee Assistance Program
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Optional Benefits: Pet Insurance, Identity Theft Protection, Student Debt Repayment Program and Prepaid Legal coverage

This compensation range is specific to the United States and it incorporates many factors including but not limited to an applicant's skills and prior relevant experience and training; licensures, degrees, and certifications; internal equity; internal pay ranges; and market data/range parameters.

#LI-SM1 #LI-REMOTE

EEO Commitment

EEO Commitment

PowerSchool is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. PowerSchool is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. Our inclusive culture empowers PowerSchoolers to deliver the best results for our customers. We not only celebrate the diversity of our workforce, we celebrate the diverse ways we work. If you have a disability and need an accommodation regarding our recruiting process, please let us know by emailing View email address on click.appcast.io.