Manager of Product Management

Manager Of Product Management

Carina is a nonprofit technology organization founded in 2016 that operates an online home care matching platform. We connect individuals who need publicly funded home care services, including Medicaid, with home care workers seeking meaningful work and good jobs. We work closely with state and local governments, labor unions, training funds, and private employers. Since our founding, Carina has successfully facilitated thousands of matches, resulting in more than 5 million hours of home care being delivered.

Carina has been recognized as an MIT Solver in the care economy, a Black & Brown Innovator honoree by MIT Solve, and an honoree on CareGuild's Care at Scale List, highlighting our innovative approach to strengthening the care workforce and expanding access to care.

Reporting to the Director of Product and Design, the Manager of Product Management will play a key role in Carina's next phase of growth: translating product strategy into decisions about what to build and when and owning the execution to build well and deliver solutions that meet the needs of the people we serve. This role partners closely with the Manager of Product Design as one of two functional leads under the Director of Product and Design, sharing responsibility for how the product and design team operates day to day.

This is an exciting opportunity to help shape product management at a mission-driven platform operating at the intersection of technology, policy, and human need — with real ownership over how the team frames problems, decides what matters, and knows whether what they built actually worked. The Manager of Product Management will bring sound judgment to ambiguous, multi-stakeholder situations, and will have the opportunity to build and develop a team over time as Carina's needs evolve.

You will:

• Build and maintain a deep understanding of the users, partners, program, and policy environments Carina operates within;
• Synthesize that understanding into clear, well-reasoned problem statements that are grounded in evidence and communicated in a way others can align around;
• Use prioritization frameworks and structured trade-off analysis to exercise judgment on what is worth solving and in what order, grounded in organizational context, team resources, and strategic priorities;
• Identify and distinguish genuine constraints (legal, technical, resourcing) from assumptions that have simply never been tested and assess whether an assumption is high-risk and material enough to challenge, or safe enough to work within;
• Partner with the design team to connect problem framing to real user needs and journeys.

Strategic roadmap execution:

• Partner with the Director of Product and Design to translate product vision and strategy into a clear, sequenced roadmap, grounded in the team's own problem framing;
• Ensure the day-to-day work of the team ladders up to Carina's broader strategic goals;
• Apply systems thinking to ensure product decisions account for the ecosystem in which we operate;
• Ensure the team's work ships and achieves its intended outcome;
• Stay hands-on with execution work, including user story writing and bug triage, with the level of direct involvement shifting as the team grows.

Data-informed decision making:

• Establish frameworks for incorporating quantitative platform data and qualitative research into product decisions;
• Define success criteria upfront, track metrics post-launch, and course-correct based on what the data shows.

Cross-functional collaboration:

• Work as a close partner to the Manager of Product Design, ensuring alignment from discovery through delivery;
• Collaborate with designers and engineers to assess and prioritize opportunities, evaluate risks, and ensure product decisions balance user needs with technical feasibility;
• Partner with engineering leadership to ensure the roadmap reflects real technical trade-offs, adjusting plans as needed;
• Partner with data leadership to understand what's measurable and knowable today, and where new instrumentation or reporting is needed to answer a product question;
• Maintain a two-way loop with other internal functions (such as marketing, partner relations, and user support), collaborating on product decisions that affect their work, and bringing their frontline insights back into product thinking.

Partner & stakeholder relationships:

• Facilitate workshops with labor unions, government agencies, and partner organizations to gather input and drive alignment;
• Collaborate with the Director of Product and Design to present product strategy and rationale to executives and external partners.

Team leadership & development:

• Bring a coaching mindset, with the ability to lead, mentor, and develop a growing product management team;
• Build a product culture and hold a high quality bar, in partnership with the Manager of Product Design;
• Contribute to hiring and team-building as Carina's needs evolve.

You have:

• 8+ years of progressive experience in product management, with demonstrated growth in scope and complexity;
• Demonstrated ability to independently frame ambiguous problems and make sound prioritization judgment calls;
• A track record of using research, data, and stakeholder input to inform product decisions;
• Experience owning a roadmap, including making the decisions about what is included and why;
• Experience managing, mentoring, or developing product managers, or a clear readiness to step into that role as a team is built;
• A track record of successfully managing both internal and external stakeholder relationships, including situations involving competing priorities or difficult trade-offs;
• Demonstrated success facilitating workshops and collaboration sessions that turn diverse stakeholder input into clear product direction;
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to tailor complex concepts to different audiences;
• Experience working in Agile environments.

Key attributes:

• Demonstrates autonomy and active ownership of complex problem spaces;
• Comfortable with ambiguity and able to create clarity and alignment for others;
• Intellectually curious with a drive to understand "why" and uncover the right solution;
• Energized by balancing competing needs across multiple stakeholders;
• Deeply committed to getting work shipped and into the hands of the people who need it;
• Passionate about creating meaningful impact in the care space and improving lives for both care workers and care seekers.

It would be great if you have:

• Experience with government programs, healthcare systems, or other highly regulated environments;
• Experience with multi-market expansion;
• Background in platform or marketplace products serving multiple user types;
• Experience working in mission-driven or nonprofit organizations;
• Experience working with large datasets to inform product strategy.

Carina provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Equal Opportunity Employer This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.