Product Manager

Position Overview

We're looking for a Product Manager to own product delivery across complex Higher Education engagements. This role is ideal for an experienced product thinker who can run a backlog, translate business needs into clear requirements, and build strong relationships with clients and delivery teams from day one.

In this role, you will work as a core member of a cross-functional delivery team, owning backlog management, requirements definition, and sprint execution end-to-end. You'll be joining real, in-flight work where quality and delivery speed matter, collaborating with experienced engineers and designers and growing the product instincts that come from shipping things that matter.

Why This Role Matters

Product Managers are how Robots and Pencils turns requirements into shipped work. On the engagements you support, you own the backlog, translate business needs into clear user stories, and keep the team's day-to-day delivery moving. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days; that pace holds only when someone treats the backlog like their own, keeps the team unblocked, and asks the right question before the team builds the wrong thing.

What You’ll Do

Craft & Delivery

• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring work is clearly defined, prioritized, and aligned to business outcomes
• Translate business needs and stakeholder requests into structured requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria
• Partner with engineering and design to ensure requirements are well understood and delivered with quality
• Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, and day-to-day delivery execution to keep the team on track
• Identify and manage dependencies, risks, and scope changes throughout the delivery lifecycle
• Leverage data, user feedback, and team insights to continuously improve the product
• Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude to accelerate documentation, research, and analysis

Collaboration & Communication

• Build and maintain strong relationships with client stakeholders, serving as a trusted partner in delivery
• Communicate progress, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Facilitate working sessions, requirement discussions, and decision-making forums with clients and delivery teams

Leadership & Influence

• Own the outcome of the work, not just the tickets — care about what shipped well, not just what got built
• Frame requests in terms of user and business outcomes, not just features
• Contribute to a positive, high-performing team environment through reliability, clarity, and good judgment

What You’ll Bring

• 5+ years of experience in product management or product ownership
• Experience in the Higher Education space including Colleague ERP, SIS, and LMS platforms
• Strong understanding of agile delivery practices and product ownership responsibilities
• Experience writing requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria for cross-functional delivery teams
• Experience working directly with clients or external stakeholders
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
• Analytical approach to decision-making using data and user insight
• Proficiency with product and delivery tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Miro)
• Demonstrable usage of AI tools to accelerate documentation, research, and analysis (e.g., Claude)
• Experience in a consulting or agency environment is a plus

Helpful Extras and Unique Skills

• Curiosity about prototyping with AI tools (e.g., Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) — willingness to try AI to validate product ideas, even if you haven't done it formally yet.
• Experience with process-mapping or documentation tools.
• Working familiarity with GenAI fundamentals (LLMs, prompt engineering) — enough to follow technical conversations and ask good questions.
• Exposure to AI-powered products as a user, contributor, or observer, and the curiosity to learn how they're built.
• Vertical depth in one or more of Consumer Products and Retail, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, or Manufacturing.

You’ll Do Well Here if You Are

• A doer. You see something broken and fix it. You'd rather move on clarity than wait for certainty.
• A fast learner who knows you don't know everything. The AI landscape changes weekly. You're senior enough to know better and curious enough to keep learning anyway.
• Direct in a way that makes the work better. You give honest feedback. You'd rather have the hard conversation than blow smoke.
• Obsessed with craft. You know genius is in the details. You ship exceptional, not perfect, and you don't put your name on work you wouldn't stand behind.
• Built for ownership. You honor commitments, admit mistakes fast, and back your teammates when a decision costs something. No handoffs, no finger-pointing.
• All in. You treat clients' businesses like your own. You take the work seriously without taking yourself seriously.
• Resourceful when the budget, timeline, or team is tight. Constraints don't slow you down. They sharpen you.
• Glad to be in the room with people who care as much as you do. Our teams average fifteen-plus years of experience. We hire people who push each other to do better work.
• Honest about what you don't know. You name the assumption, separate customer truth from client opinion, and AI promise from AI reality. You'd rather slow the room down for the right question than rush to the wrong answer.