Director of Product

Job Description

Welcome to Sidebench! Interested in advancing the outcomes in the health of people and the planet through design, technology, and partnerships? Does solving some of the most complex problems in healthcare and climate tech get you fired up?! Read on. About us Sidebench is an award winning custom product studio tackling some of the hardest problems in the world through innovative software solutions. At Sidebench we operate in empowered product teams that are purpose built to solve hard problems in ways that work for our clients, that their customers love, and make the world a better place. Sidebench been recognized as Fast Company's Best Workplace for Innovators 2021, one of the fastest growing (Inc 5000 5 years running) and most entrepreneurial (3x Entrepreneur Magazine's E360 Award) companies in America, and for the positive impact we are making through our work (American Hospital Association’s Innovation Challenge Winner, Fast Company's Best Apps for our Children’s Hospital app, BuiltInLA's Top Social Impact companies). Why join the team? We value a give-first mentality, empathy, curiosity, earning trust, challenging our own inertia, and playing the long game, and when we think about the future, both immediate and distant, we aspire to be an unconventional catalyst that helps create a world where all people thrive. As a team, we strive to strike the balance between work and our personal lives and encourage our team members to exercise their unlimited PTO, find a cool course to take using our annual education stipend, make your mental health a top priority through our partnership with Talkspace, and plan for retirement through our 401k matching program. Role Overview Director, Product As the Director of Product Management you’ll need to demonstrate competencies across the full product lifecycle all the way from discovery to shipping iteration after iteration. This will include everything from product strategy, customer discovery, product team leadership, product evangelism, prioritization frameworks, SDLC, release notes, change management, and management of relationships with key internal and client facing stakeholders. You will lead multiple product teams as a servant leader and player coach to help the team(s) develop their product strategies anchored in outcomes that the product team(s) work to achieve while ensuring that what we ship meets the needs of our client partners and their customers. You’ll also work very closely with the VP of Product to shape a learning and development plan for PMs at all levels and to create a Product Management Apprentice Program. Key Areas of Responsibility Servant Leadership & Player Coaching: First and foremost, this is a leadership position reporting to the VP of Product with a lot of exposure to the rest of the leadership team. The Director of Product oversees and ensures that the Product Managers are supported, growing their skill sets, and that their products are effectively executed. Learning & Development: You’ll work to create and execute on a product management skill assessment and development program for product managers at every level helping to train and up-skill the product talent. Apprentice Product Management Program: The VP of Product seeks to run an Apprenticeship Program that will allow those typically underserved in tech the opportunity to get hands-on experience in product development. Product management is typically notoriously challenging to find a role in if you haven’t done the job before and we seek to serve the aspiring product community by providing that chance through multiple cohorts of Apprentices per year. As the Director of Product, you’ll manage the day-to-day program helping to grow these up and coming product minds. Product Evangelism: Like the VP of Product Management, the Director is tasked with representing the business and promoting empowered Product Teams and product philosophies by advocating for the value and benefits of our approach with prospects and client partners, executive briefings, marketing events, online consumer platforms, etc. Key Traits Outcomes Driven: You’ll have a proven track record in product strategy, planning, defining, launching successful products, and managing product portfolios. You should be able to demonstrate experience leading with outcomes, understanding the core levers of a business model, and have a desire to participate in thought leadership in order to be better positioned to drive and inspire our team and our client partners. The concept of KPIs, leading and lagging indicators, and the ability to articulate how your products have made a measurable difference in such is a must. Leader & Culture Champion : Be seen as a servant leader who helps the team increase their own abilities through coaching and mentoring while being a high performer who upholds our values and is a key contributor to the culture. Empathetic Communicator : People should describe you as empathetic and as an excellent communicator. You should have the ability to really understand the person, their problems, and be able to “walk a mile in their shoes.” You should have excellent listening skills and an endless curiosity to understand the why behind everyone and everything. You will be required to constantly make presentations to the team, the VP of Product, company and client partner stakeholders as well as representing the business and the product in various external functions. Analytical & Inquisitive: You’ll need to have a superior ability to synthesize diverse and complex information and data to help design elegant strategies, solutions, workflows, and procedures that are presentable to all stakeholders. Self Motivated, Level Headed & Master Prioritizer: You must be a master at time management with a keen ability to prioritize the most important people problems while also improving and training on workplace procedures, processes, and systems. Ideally you’re a creative but systematic thinker who can develop solutions within deadlines while being perceived as calm and composed in the face of challenging scenarios and when under pressure. Qualifications: You’re a servant leader, both with your internal teams and with both partners and clients You have 6+ years of experience working in a product leadership role with additional experience in an operational capacity within a consultancy, agency or high growth startup environment Consider your strongest area of expertise is to user-centric problem solving in ways that work for the business Created, implemented, and managed internal best practices and/or standard operating procedures You have experience creating client or stakeholder deliverables and leading workshops Experience in hiring, staffing, mentoring and managing a team of product managers and using their unique abilities to take projects and deliverables to the next level Expert level understanding of both the product design and the product development processes Strong experience with custom software solutions, mobile applications, web experiences, or a similar kind of creative product development Hunger to learn quickly, high energy, ability to think on your toes, and motivation to be a key team member within a short period of time with the company Proven project management experience and proven ability to motivate proper resources in a thoughtful and timely manner Ability to build rapport with internal teams; a team-oriented culture champion Confidence, humility, creativity, a team player mentality, and a positive attitude are a must Experience in creating and managing a program for entry level new hiresInterest in coaching and mentoring young talent Diverse Perspectives: We know that innovation thrives on product teams where diverse points of view come together to solve hard problems in ways that are just now possible. As such, we explicitly seek people that bring diverse life experiences, diverse educational backgrounds, diverse cultures, and diverse work experiences. Please be prepared to share with us how your perspective will bring something unique and valuable to our product teams. Apply for this job