Director of Product

Esper was founded in 2018 with the mission to empower dynamic and responsive policymaking in government. Esper’s goal is to align existing data, stakeholders and public policy goals to streamline the policymaking process at all levels of government. We imagine a world where policymaking is driven by data and insights from all stakeholders and we are transforming traditional bureaucracy into a dynamic and flexible system that encourages innovation and collaboration. 

Esper is looking for an experienced Director of Product to help drive this mission forward.

Job Description:

The Director of Product is responsible for the overall execution of Esper’s product strategy and will work closely with the CEO and CTO to map product vision into tangible deliverables. As a member of the executive team, the Director of Product will work alongside Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and Professional Services executives to coordinate the product prioritization and product lifecycle. This role is also responsible for building, leading, and mentoring the product team, including product managers and product designers. Esper’s product team is still young, so you will have an extraordinary impact on the future of Esper’s product and overall company strategy. 

What you'll do:

- Lead the formation and execution of product strategy

- Develop the product roadmap and communicate with C-level staff, board members, and other stakeholders

- Hire, manage and mentor a team of product managers and designers

- Level up organizational practices, including team processes, organization, documentation, and communication protocols

- Deeply understand customer needs and form relationships with key customers

- Analyze competitive products and determine Esper’s positioning against them

- Lead, define, represent and communicate product strategy to all stakeholders.

- Develop product budgets and metrics in coordination with Business Operations

- Establish and track product metrics to measure success and identify opportunities for improvement

- For an interim period, serve as the primary product stakeholder for a small team of engineers

- In all of the above, foster strong cross-team relationships, particularly with our engineering and customer-facing teams

What we're looking for:

- 5+ years in senior product management role 

- Experience in enterprise and growth stage software companies 

- Creative ability to build the big picture product vision and operational ability to execute on it 

- A passion for the nuts and bolts of how to build product

- Demonstrated ability to effectively build high-performing teams and attract and retain top product talent

- Experience with tightly integrated cross-functional teams and the ability to build inter-team processes and communication patterns

- A player-coach, someone who doesn’t shy away from getting into the weeds writing a product spec or working with engineers

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills

- Knowledge of government industry is appreciated though not required 

How this role will be evaluated:

Cross-team collaboration

- Are there open lines of communication across teams?

- Do other teams feel equipped by Product to do their jobs?

- Are we setting clear expectations with other teams and meeting them?

- Are other teams aware of product launches?

Organizational development

- Are we staffed correctly?

- Are we using our time and resources effectively?

- How is team satisfaction trending?

- Do we have a plan for team expansion?

Product processes

- Have we established and adhered to a clear product development process?

- Are we seeing efficiency and/or quality improvements?

- How is development velocity trending?

- Are we able to track our processes internally?

- Are we able to make accurate predictions and meet deadlines?

Customer satisfaction

- Are customers satisfied with the product?

- How is the time to resolution of customer issues trending?

- How is the volume of customer requests trending?

- Are we able to track product usage?

- How is it trending?

- Are we seeing strong adoption of new products?

Roadmap

- Are our roadmap commitments commensurate with our capacity?

- Are we meeting stated goals and roadmap objectives?

- Do we have a healthy balance of product initiatives, technical initiatives, client requests, new client launches, and bug fixes?

- Does our roadmap align with company goals? 

- Are there metrics for success attached to roadmap initiatives? 

- Is there company-wide buy in on the roadmap?

This is a remote position where a candidate can reside in the following states. New York, California, Texas, Washington, Washington, D.C, Illinois, Georgia, Connecticut , Iowa, Virginia, Michigan, Maryland, Arizona or Missourim, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, Oregon, Utah or Massachusetts.

Tags