Job Description

Packback is seeking a Senior Level Product Manager to oversee our institutional tools team to support our mission to help every student follow their curiosity and discover their unique voice. 

Packback’s A.I.-powered platform is used by educators in both K-12 and higher education to help their students fall in love with the subject matter, drive personalized learning, and improve student critical thinking and writing skills through real-time AI feedback.

As our Senior Product Manager, you will be responsible for collaborating with a team of engineers and user experience designers to develop excellent solutions to the projects on your team’s roadmap. In this role, you will blend user research, market research, product design, and project management to take project goals in a brief and develop product specifications that find the best solution that balances timeline, business goals, and user needs. 

You’ll be responsible for monitoring the success of your project around KPIs (both qualitative and quantitative). As a Senior Product Manager, you will be responsible for the “end-to-end” success of the features and product rollouts you manage, including internal and external communication, consulting on product marketing, and supporting teams with change management.

Most importantly, as a Senior Product Manager, you will be responsible for championing our Packback’s Product Design Principles that focus on building a student-centered learning environment, and helping to scale these principles as your team grows. 

Key job duties include:

• User Research and Market Research to help define the solutions to key business problems

• Developing prioritized Project Plans with User Stories and Phases/Epics of work release

• Managing project timelines and reprioritizing work as necessary to keep project on track

• Leading Sprint Planning meetings and collaborating with engineers and designers on your team to release effective, inspiring solutions on schedule. 

• Collaborating with UX Design Team and providing helpful guidance and critique to ensure the designs for each project fully capture the project goals

• Backlog management for your team (Institutional Tools and Academic Integrity team)

• Defining and measuring product KPIs for each project, and making data-driven product decisions  

• Internal and external communication, including release notes, training materials, and rollout strategies 

Why You Should Work at Packback

Mission - Even though we are an “AI” company, we believe that the things that make us human are more important than ever in education; curiosity, communication, connection, and every student’s unique voice. Packback’s mission is to empower every student to follow their curiosity and develop their unique voice. If you want to use AI, but want to do so in ways that empower and support educators and inspire students…this might be the right place for you!

Reach - Our platform, Packback Questions, is used by more than 1.5 million students and 10 thousand educators, who collectively author more than 10 million posts a year.  You will be a part of building a platform that has a huge impact on inspiring curiosity in students.

Training - We offer opportunities for learning and mentorship. We value people who like to wear many hats. You can get involved with the front end, back end, infrastructure and data functions.

Ownership - Packback is a rapidly growing company. You will have responsibility for bringing innovative features to market while working closely with the product team.

Requirements

We’re looking for somebody who is independent, self-motivated and eager to grow Packback’s capabilities.

• 6+ years of experience in Product Management and/or Product Design

• Demonstrated experience leading the product design and management of large scale projects with ‘high impact’ outcomes

• Experience in a range of user research methods and development of effective research plans 

• Effective prioritization skills 

• Exceptional written communication and verbal presentation skills

• Comfort collaborating with team members of a variety of specialities (UX design, marketing, engineering, account management) and acting as the central coordinator to keep all parties and stakeholders working towards a common goal

• Experience with developing product design experience in complex systems with 3rd party integrations is strongly preferred (e.g. LTI Integrations) 

• Experience working in the education field is strongly preferred 

• Willingness to travel to the office for quarterly company retreats and possible customer site visits for on-site research and observation

  • While this is a remote position and travel is not a frequent requirement, you will be asked to come to the office approximately 2X quarterly (travel covered) and may travel to visit key clients for research

Our commitment to diversity

Working in the Education Technology space, it is an ethical necessity for us to build a diverse and inclusive team in order to better consider the needs of our audience’s wide range of backgrounds and educational experiences. We provide regular training on topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion to all employees.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Perks of working at Packback

A culture that you can be proud to build: We work hard at building an inclusive culture of curiosity and continuous learning at Packback. In any role at Packback, being a good steward of our values and using them to inform decisions and communication can make an enormous impact on the business.

Work-life balance: Packback offers an unlimited vacation policy. Team members are encouraged to take time off for volunteer opportunities. Our engineering team is fully remote, and provides flexibility and support for working wherever makes the most sense for you.

Competitive Salary and Benefits: The salary range for this position is $128K - 138K annually (depending on experience) + bonus. We set clear expectations for professional growth and offer an annual learning and development stipend.

Benefits

• Remote position with an experienced distributed team

  • All employees are expected to be present in the office for quarterly retreats

  • Travel to the office is covered for non-Chicago-based employees, plus daily stipend for meals and travel

• Health & Wellness

  • Medical Insurance

  • Dental Insurance

  • Vision Insurance 

  • 401(k) with a 50% employer match

  • Stock options

  • Disability Insurance

  • Life Insurance

  • Commuter Benefits

  • Generous Parental Leave up to 12 weeks

  • Family Medical Leave

  • Flexible “unlimited” Vacation policy with a minimum of 10 days off required, plus over 10 additional days of scheduled company closures outside of paid Federal holidays each year

  • “Momentum Maintenance Fridays” - Once per month, Packback has a scheduled Friday office closure to create a 3-day weekend. Team members use this time for doctor’s appointments, travel, personal care, and professional development. 

• Additional Perks:

  • Stipend for learning and development 

  • Access to premium membership to One Medical

  • Calm subscription

  • Doordash “Dashpash”