Product Manager

Product Manager

Location: Remote | Periodic travel to Bowie, Maryland

Position Summary

We are seeking a Product Manager to support the development and modernization of data and technology products within a highly data-driven, scientific environment.

This is a hands-on role that combines Product Management, Product Ownership, and Business Analysis. The Product Manager will initially focus on data ingestion and data pipeline products while partnering closely with software and data teams, scientists, subject-matter experts, business stakeholders, and leadership.

The primary focus of this position is product execution. You will translate strategic direction into effective discovery, requirements, backlog management, prioritization, stakeholder alignment, and successful delivery.

The ideal candidate brings strong product judgment, technical curiosity, and systems thinking. You should be comfortable getting into the details with developers, working through complex requirements with scientific experts, and communicating progress, risks, trade-offs, and business impact to executive stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Delivery

• Translate product and organizational priorities into actionable product requirements and development work.
• Own and prioritize product backlogs for assigned data and technology products.
• Develop clear requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and development priorities.
• Partner with software and data teams throughout the product lifecycle, from discovery and requirements through development, testing, launch, and continuous improvement.
• Work with technical teams to clarify workflows, dependencies, edge cases, constraints, and expected product behavior.
• Balance user needs, business priorities, and technical dependencies when making product decisions.
• Coordinate releases and support the successful adoption of new functionality and workflow changes.
• Identify and communicate product risks, dependencies, trade-offs, and progress.

Product Discovery & Business Analysis

• Lead discovery and requirements sessions with scientists, business users, technical teams, and other stakeholders.
• Identify underlying business and user problems rather than simply documenting feature requests.
• Apply structured discovery and problem-solving techniques, including process mapping, workflow analysis, root-cause analysis, and the 5 Whys.
• Translate complex scientific and business processes into actionable requirements for technical teams.
• Develop a strong understanding of user workflows, system dependencies, and how data moves throughout the technology environment.
• Bring structure and clarity to complex, ambiguous, or evolving requirements.

Technology & Data Partnership

• Support products involving data ingestion, data pipelines, APIs, integrations, cloud services, databases, and internal applications.
• Understand how data enters, moves through, and is consumed across the technology ecosystem.
• Partner with software and data teams to understand technical dependencies, constraints, and downstream impacts.
• Work across interconnected technology initiatives and consider the broader impact of product decisions.
• Operate effectively within an environment that includes AWS, Snowflake, APIs, and modern cloud technologies.

This position does not require software development experience. However, the Product Manager should have enough technical fluency to work effectively with developers and data professionals, understand technical concepts and dependencies, and ask informed questions throughout the development process.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as a bridge between Technology, Data, Science, business stakeholders, and leadership.
• Build strong working relationships with developers, data professionals, scientists, PhD-level subject-matter experts, and executive stakeholders.
• Translate complex information effectively between technical and non-technical audiences.
• Facilitate discussions around priorities, requirements, dependencies, risks, and trade-offs.
• Work collaboratively with highly specialized subject-matter experts to understand their needs and translate them into actionable product requirements.
• Communicate product progress and business impact clearly to leadership.
• Facilitate effective product and discovery discussions within a distributed work environment.

Product & Systems Thinking

The Product Manager will work across interconnected products, systems, data, users, and business processes. Success requires the ability to understand individual requirements within the context of the broader technology ecosystem.

• Evaluate how product decisions may affect other systems, workflows, data, and users.
• Identify dependencies and downstream impacts across multiple initiatives.
• Help stakeholders move from individual feature requests toward clearly defined problems and desired outcomes.
• Balance immediate user needs with broader organizational and technology priorities.
• Apply Product Management, Kanban, and Agile practices pragmatically.
• Bring appropriate structure to product execution without introducing unnecessary process.

Product Growth

The initial focus of this position is hands-on product execution rather than ownership of overall product strategy. The Product Manager will work within established organizational and product priorities while taking meaningful ownership of discovery, requirements, backlog management, prioritization, stakeholder coordination, and delivery for assigned products.

As the Product Manager develops deeper knowledge of the organization's users, technology, and industry, there will be opportunities to contribute more broadly to product strategy, roadmap development, new product initiatives, B2B offerings, and other growth opportunities.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in Product Management, Product Ownership, Business Analysis, Technical Business Analysis, or a related technology-focused role.
• Demonstrated experience conducting product discovery and gathering complex business and user requirements.
• Experience translating stakeholder needs into product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and development priorities.
• Experience owning or significantly contributing to product backlogs and prioritization.
• Experience working directly with software engineers, data engineers, or other technical teams.
• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle.
• Working knowledge of APIs, integrations, data flows, databases, cloud applications, or related technical concepts.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, product-thinking, and systems-thinking skills.
• Ability to understand dependencies and downstream impacts across interconnected systems and workflows.
• Ability to operate effectively in environments with complex or evolving requirements.
• Strong written, verbal, facilitation, and stakeholder communication skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with technical teams, specialized subject-matter experts, business stakeholders, and executive leadership.
• Ability to work independently and collaborate effectively in a remote environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting internal enterprise or B2B technology products.
• Experience with data-intensive products or platforms, including data ingestion, ETL/ELT, data pipelines, or complex data integrations.
• Experience supporting application, data platform, or cloud modernization initiatives.
• Exposure to AWS, Snowflake, or comparable cloud and data platforms.
• Experience working with APIs and system integrations.
• Experience in scientific, research, healthcare, life sciences, agriculture, genomics, or another complex domain.
• Familiarity with Kanban, Agile, and modern Product Management practices.

Experience with AWS, Snowflake, or a scientific/data-intensive industry is beneficial but not required.

Work Environment

This is a remote position with periodic travel to Bowie, Maryland for team collaboration, planning, and key meetings.

The Product Manager will work with a distributed group of technical teams, business stakeholders, scientists, and subject-matter experts and should be highly effective at facilitating discovery, building stakeholder alignment, and driving product execution in a remote environment.