Senior Product Manager

This position is fully remote/home based. Applications will be accepted from candidates based in the UK and the following US states: FL, GA, MA, MD, NY, PA, VA, VT.

Role Summary

As a Senior Product Manager at PLOS, you’ll have strategic and tactical oversight of a broad solution space within the organization. You will lead and manage the iterative design, development, and maintenance of PLOS digital products and services. Working closely with your product team and colleagues across the organisation, you will ensure a clear understanding of:

• The problems we are trying to solve
• Why our users will use our solution
• How the solution benefits PLOS
• How the solution integrates with the overall PLOS platform
• How we will measure and evaluate the success or failure of the work

Your decisions will be data-informed and outcome-centered, guided by performance metrics, user insights, and market intelligence. You will work collaboratively with software engineers, designers, and subject matter experts to discover solutions and drive outcomes. The results of your work will have a material impact on our collective success, helping to fulfill our business objectives, improve our operations, and further our mission.

Responsibilities

Product Strategy

• Define and champion the vision for the product and how it fits into the overall architecture and user experience.
• Serving as the key spokesperson for your products, clearly and convincingly communicate the aims of the product internally and externally.
• Measure and optimize performance of products within your area of ownership.
• Take initiative in identifying issues; plan and implement solutions with innovative thinking.
• Communicate solution strategies and plans within organization; enable and contribute to external communication.

Product Development

• Conduct and/or commission research to understand current user needs and behavior.
• Formulate and test product hypotheses using qualitative and quantitative metrics.
• Ensure the team understands the problems to be solved and facilitate team collaboration to devise desirable and feasible solutions. 
• Combine your knowledge of technology and design heuristics with a deep understanding of our users’ wants and needs to iteratively develop digital products for the benefit of our users.
• Communicate release plans and author release notes.

Product Support

• Lead internal trainings, presentations, and demos of solutions within your area of ownership.
• Address escalations and field questions from staff. 
• Establish product health benchmarks and measure ongoing performance to optimize user experience through iterative design and development. 

Qualifications and Experience   

• Solid understanding of website development best practices including user research, interface design, analytics, information architecture, domain driven design and software development and deployment.
• Ability to develop and refine a compelling product vision.
• Comfortable operating within an Agile SDLC; comprehensive understanding of Agile best practices.
• Ability to foster an experimental outcome-based culture that values learning and continuous improvement and empowers the teams to take ownership and responsibility themselves.
• Deep understanding of product development methodologies, innovation frameworks and
  principles.
• Solid understanding of web accessibility standards and designing inclusive digital products.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Passionate about the ability of qual and quant data to improve user experience.
• Ability to exercise sound judgment about important business issues for reporting and escalation.
• Experience with products within the scholarly publishing space preferred.

Physical Requirements and Work Environment 

• The ability to use standard office equipment.  
• Minimal travel required (1-3 times a year at most)
• Must be able to work in a remote environment: strong virtual collaboration skills and ability to work effectively when not in a designated office. If the remote work environment is not satisfactory (insufficient space that’s free from distraction; inconsistent internet stability, etc.), an alternate location may be required. 

The base salary range we’ve established for this position is (UK) £66,000 - £77,500, (US) $130,000 - $150,000. The final salary will depend on several factors, including the candidate’s relevant work experience, skills, education, and other qualifications; the region in which the candidate resides, and internal pay equity with current PLOS employees in similar jobs. PLOS also offers a comprehensive benefits package that will be shared with candidates in the interview process

The Organization:

PLOS is a non-profit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. PLOS journals propelled the movement for OA alternatives to subscription journals. We established the first multi-disciplinary publication inclusive of all excellent research regardless of novelty or impact and demonstrated the importance of open data availability. As we continue to lead the way in making research content more open, we need to make it a system that's open for everyone. We are intentionally spreading our roots deeper, globally. 

We believe in pushing the boundaries of 'Open' to create a more equitable system of scientific knowledge and understanding—it’s core to who we are, inside and out. Beyond accepting distinct perspectives, we seek and support divergent backgrounds among our staff because we know differences strengthen our teams, our work, and our communities. We’re ever-evolving in our journey for representation and equity, and strongly encourage applicants of diverse identities to apply: you’ll find a group of critical thinkers eager to challenge the status quo and learn with you as we continue breaking barriers to open science.

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