Lead Product Manager

Job Mission: Own and deliver on a product area while building the product management team’s capabilities, processes, and culture. Accountable for both product outcomes and the growth of PMs on the team. Key responsibilities: Partner with the CEO & executive team to set product strategy and prioritize development objectives across all product areas Interface with clients to uncover market problems, test divergent ideas and converge on the best solution that is valuable, usable and feasible Drive outcomes by setting the strategic direction (roadmap) and managing the tactical implementation (backlog) for owned product area while ensuring consistent practice across the PM team Support launching products in the market, including sales readiness, go-to-market activities and ongoing post-launch efforts Build and develop the PM team — hire, coach, and establish the methodologies, rituals, and quality bar for product management Represent the product function in executive and cross-functional leadership forums Product Discovery & Opportunity Assessment Runs a continuous-discovery loop (weekly customer touchpoints, rapid experiments, opportunity-solution tree kept current). Frames market problems with clear learning objectives, risks & assumptions before delivery. Leads the Triad (PM + UX + Lead Engineer) to test value, usability & feasibility early; encourages intelligent risk-taking. Combines qualitative insight (interviews, jobs-to-be-done) with quantitative signal (usage, funnel, NPS) to size opportunities. Challenges assumptions openly—asks crisp, “what would have to be true?” questions. Leverages Generative AI capabilities as a product lever and can identity where AI adds genuine user value vs. where it’s cosmetic, and partners with engineering to evaluate feasibility. Owns an outcome-based roadmap that ties directly to company OKRs and 4-lens test (Strategy, Vision, Customer, Business). Gains executive & cross-functional alignment through storytelling and visuals; roadmaps are adaptable (reviewed at least quarterly). Converts high-level outcomes to measurable Key Results and maintains a visible trace from initiative → metric. Product Ownership & Agile Delivery Serves as Product Owner for an agile process; backlog always reflects priority + class-of-service. Sets High-Integrity Commitments (fixed-date work) only when risk-adjusted forecasts support them; meets ≥ 90 % of those dates. Collaborates daily with engineering to slice value thinly, ensure definition-of-ready/done, and unblock swiftly. Leverage LLMs (Claude Code / Cowork) for user research synthesis, rapid prototyping, and backlog analysis and reporting. Collaboration, Evangelism & Leadership Cultivates trust-first relationships; practices pre-wiring / shuttle diplomacy to avoid surprises. Evangelizes the product vision internally & externally; can demo, train, and support customers end-to-end. Models servant-leadership: creates psychological safety, celebrates experiments (even failed ones) and elevates team expertise. Proactively translates company strategy into product narratives that resonate with every function (sales, CX, marketing, finance). Represents the product function in executive and cross-functional leadership forums; owns the product narrative at the company level. PM Team Leadership & Capability Building Establishes and coaches a consistent discovery and delivery methodology across PMs. Runs regular product reviews that elevate team thinking (not just status updates); sets the quality bar for specs, roadmaps, and stakeholder communication by example. Makes hiring decisions and builds a pipeline of PM talent; creates career development frameworks and gives direct, actionable feedback. Ensures consistent backlog health and delivery practices across all PM-owned products, not just their own. Creates psychological safety for the PM team; celebrates experiments (even failed ones) and elevates individual expertise. Required Experience & Skills 7–10 years of software product management experience, including ownership of a product roadmap and backlog Demonstrated experience running continuous product discovery (customer interviews, experiments, opportunity sizing) Track record of shipping software products through a full lifecycle — from discovery through launch and iteration Experience working within Agile/Lean/Kanban delivery teams as a Product Owner or equivalent Strong data literacy — comfortable using analytics, funnel metrics, and usage data to inform decisions Technical fluency — able to collaborate deeply with engineering on feasibility, trade-offs, and system design (not expected to write code) Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to lead meetings, present to executives, and facilitate cross-functional alignment Go-to-market experience — has partnered with sales, marketing, and CX on launches and enablement 2–3+ years of formal or informal leadership of other PMs, including mentoring and developing PM talent Comfort operating at both strategic and tactical altitude — can present a quarterly roadmap narrative to the board and write acceptance criteria in the same week BA/BS degree required Preferred Experience with data integration, interoperability, or iPaaS/middleware products MBA or equivalent graduate degree Experience with outcome-based roadmapping and OKR frameworks Familiarity with LLM capabilities, prompt engineering, and the practical constraints of AI systems Experience scaling a PM team from 1–2 to 4–6 PMs, including establishing PM practices, rituals, and tooling Nice-to-Have Prior experience working within Salesforce or Blackbaud ecosystems Prior experience working in the nonprofit sector (either at a nonprofit or at a nonprofit software/service provider)