Forward Deployed Product Manager

Position Summary Active Network is hiring a Forward Deployed Product Manager to lead one of our most strategic, single-customer engagements: a large, multi-module platform build on ACTIVEWorks Endurance for a leading global endurance and obstacle-race event organizer and its family of brands. This is a builder’s role – equal parts embedded customer partner and hands‑on product owner. Role Overview Unlike a traditional portfolio PM, you’ll be dedicated to a single customer and deployed into their world. You’ll learn their business deeply, translate race-day realities into platform requirements, and drive a complex, phased roadmap to firm delivery milestones – an initial launch followed by a subsequent phase of enhancements. At the same time, you remain a rigorous product owner: writing epics and user stories, grooming the backlog, and coordinating the 2-3 development teams that turn the Statement of Work into shipped software. Key Responsibilities Embed & Partner Be the forward‑deployed product lead – embed with the customer, build trust, and become their day‑to‑day product point of contact for the engagement. Run discovery and requirements sessions directly with client stakeholders; surface the real need behind each ask, resolve ambiguity, and drive decisions. Translate high‑level client objectives and race‑day operational realities into clear, measurable functional requirements. Communicate relentlessly – progress, risks, trade‑offs, and evolving requirements – to both the customer and internal leadership throughout the project lifecycle. Own the Product & Backlog Define, drive, and maintain the roadmap and backlog for the engagement across both delivery phases – an initial launch and a follow‑on phase of enhancements. Write clear epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria from a detailed SOW spanning registration and checkout, payments and split settlement, dynamic pricing, race passes, transfers, on‑site/race‑day operations, identity/SSO, APIs/webhooks, and reporting. Prioritize ruthlessly – sequence initial feature development and ongoing change requests against firm delivery deadlines. Manage scope against the SOW – identify change requests, quantify their impact on estimate and timeline, and partner with account and delivery leadership to keep the engagement on track. Coordinate Delivery Quarterback 2-3 development teams – align sprint goals, manage cross‑team dependencies, and orchestrate release sequencing across interdependent modules. Prepare release objectives, milestones, and schedules with engineering, project management, design, and QA across all phases of development and launch. Partner with Business Analysts and designers to ensure designs and builds meet documented requirements and customer needs. Coordinate complex, cross‑functional areas – Stripe payments and split settlement, international/multi‑currency and VAT/GST, and data and reporting delivered via ACTIVE Hub. Drive launch readiness – support UAT, cutover planning, and post‑launch stabilization for race‑day‑critical functionality. Act as quarterback of the team and business owner for the overall solution. Preferred Qualifications 4+ years in a product management or product owner role. Bachelor’s degree. Embedded / customer‑facing experience – prior forward‑deployed, solutions, professional‑services, or client‑embedded PM work strongly preferred. Proven track record of delivering complex software projects on time, on quality, and on budget. Demonstrated experience writing epics, user stories, and functional requirements in an agile environment. Experience coordinating multiple concurrent development teams and managing cross‑team dependencies. Exposure to SaaS and ecommerce product development; comfort with payments, APIs/webhooks, and third‑party integrations. Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written – able to be the trusted face of the product to an external customer. Strong business acumen and the ability to translate client objectives into measurable requirements. Ability to communicate effectively with different personalities and roles (development, sales, support, customer, analyst, executive) and build strong relationships. Desired Skills and Capabilities Experience in registration, ticketing, events, or endurance/obstacle‑course racing (OCR). Familiarity with payment processing and split settlement (e.g., Stripe Connect). Experience with international commerce, multi‑currency, and VAT/GST compliance. Experience with BI/reporting platforms (Power BI, SQL‑based data warehouses). Pragmatic Institute (Pragmatic Marketing) Certified. B2B2C experience. A passion for endurance sports. #J-18808-Ljbffr