Sr. Data Product Manager

About Niche

Niche is the leader in school search. Our mission is to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools, we help millions of people find the right school for them. We also help thousands of schools recruit more best-fit students, by highlighting what makes them great and making it easier to visit and apply.

Niche is all about finding where you belong, and that mission inspires how we operate every day. We want Niche to be a place where people truly enjoy working and can thrive professionally.

About The Role

We are looking for a highly experienced and strategic-minded individual to join the team as the Senior Data Product Manager.  Areas of focus for this role could include products to prove ROI to customers, Niche’s grades and rankings products, and SaaS market intelligence products for higher ed customers. Leveraging Niche’s wealth of proprietary data,  you will help shape the future of our data products and capabilities, primarily in the real estate and education space, ensuring that they align with the company's overall vision and deliver maximum business impact while enhancing the customer experience. As an early hire in this function, you will have the opportunity to help shape the foundation for data product management within our organization. You will collaborate closely with key stakeholders across various teams, translating their needs into clear requirements, detailed roadmaps, and, most importantly, driving successful product implementation and timely delivery. The ideal candidate is a seasoned data product manager with a strong grasp of data science, ML, and analytics, and a proven track record of managing several multi-year product roadmaps simultaneously. If you are passionate about building products and capabilities that enable a culture of test-and-learn and a culture of data-driven decision-making, then this could be a great role for you.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Strategic Vision: Develop a comprehensive understanding of the company's business goals and priorities, and use that insight to contribute to a strategic vision for data products and capabilities. 
• Roadmap Development: Prioritize and create a roadmap for data products and capabilities, ensuring they offer the maximum value proposition to the business. This involves setting clear priorities, defining milestones, and continuously assessing the roadmap's alignment with evolving business needs.
• Go To Market:  Ability to work cross-functionally with teams to build the case for and effectively plan the launch of new products. 
• User Advocacy: Be the strongest advocate for our users and stakeholders. Continuously listen to user feedback, and cultivate a deep understanding of their experiences, needs, pain points, and motivations. Use this insight to inform product decisions and improvements.
• User Personas: Develop a thorough understanding of the various user personas who will be utilizing our data products and capabilities. This includes identifying their unique requirements, challenges, and preferences.
• Collaboration and Communication: Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, analysts, engineers, designers, technical project managers (TPMs), and other product managers. Translate requirements between these groups and ensure alignment with the product vision.
• Conflict Resolution: Handle conflicts and differing opinions effectively by creating alignment and visibility across various teams and departments. Promote a harmonious and cooperative work environment while driving product goals.
• Data-Driven Approach: Embrace a data-driven mindset and approach. Clearly define key performance indicators (KPIs) and success metrics for our data products. Ensure that necessary instrumentation is in place to measure and validate the success and impact of our work, making data-informed decisions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a bridge between the data team and other business units. Engage with key stakeholders to understand their needs and work collaboratively to deliver solutions that meet their expectations and enhance their operations.

What You Will Do

During the First Month:

• Learn about Niche by meeting with various team members to learn more about our company through our Onboarding meetings
• Collaborate with various team members to learn about the company
• Work with members of the Product Management and Data teams to begin to understand our platform capabilities and proprietary data. 
• Attend product team meetings to begin to understand the workflow and build relationships across the product development and data organizations 
• Collaborate with product managers and project managers across the Product department to learn about our tools, workflow, and analytical process
• Shadow product management team members to learn more about how we collaborate with other areas of the business and how your role fits with external stakeholders and teams

Within 3 Months:

• Full understanding of our suite of data products and strategy =
• Assume the role of Product Owner for an initiative;  this includes communicating and gathering requirements from stakeholders, maintaining and prioritizing a product backlog, and running bi-weekly sprint planning meetings
• Begin to analyze key user and business metrics and monitor results of various releases
• Collaborate with members of the operations, sales, and product team to gain expertise in our work flows and end users and ensure work stays aligned to the product vision

Within 6 Months:

• Begin to fully own a product backlog; this includes research and development of new features/initiatives and aligning to product and business strategic initiatives
• Responsible for analyzing and reporting on team metrics across the company; turn analysis into actionable next steps and enhancements
• Have an understanding of the tech stack and an ability to work and communicate effectively with developers on the team
• Work closely with product marketing to introduce new features and drive engagement

Within 12 Months:

• You will have deep knowledge of all aspects of the products you manage and how they integrate with company strategy 
• Use data-driven and user insights to inform overall product and business strategy
• Continue to develop long term strategy; expand the product offerings as the Niche evolves and expands

What We Are Looking For

• A proven track record in data product management, with a strong understanding of business strategy and data product development. +5 years of experience
• Exceptional ability to think strategically and align data products with the company's overarching goals and priorities.
• A relentless dedication to understanding and advocating for users, supported by a deep understanding of user personas.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills to work effectively with diverse teams, including data scientists, engineers, designers, and other product managers.
• A highly analytical and data-driven approach to product management, with a focus on setting and measuring success metrics.
• ​​Familiarity with databases, data warehouses, pipelines, and ETL/ELT processes
• Ability to use tools like SQL, Tableau, Power BI, or Looker for analyzing and visualizing data.
• Knowledge of how data is collected, stored, processed, and retired.
• Familiarity with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, and their implications for product design

Are you excited about the position and its responsibilities, but hesitant because your experience doesn't align 100% with the posted requirements? We believe you are more than a resume, so go for it! You won’t want to miss the opportunity to play a part in helping students find where they belong.

Compensation 

Our national target base salary range is $117,000-$147,000, plus participation in our Annual Bonus and Stock Option Program. Base compensation will be commensurate with experience and skills.

At Niche, our Total Rewards Philosophy is centered around creating a workplace environment that attracts, motivates, and retains top talent by providing a comprehensive and competitive rewards package.  This philosophy is built on the principles of performance-based compensation, best-in-class benefits and work-life balance, and employee well-being.

Interview Process

Candidate experience is a top priority for our talent and hiring teams.  We believe in providing a transparent, authentic and comprehensive interview process where you have the opportunity to learn about us while we get to know you and your experience.  The interview process is outlined here:

• Phone Screen with Talent Acquisition Partner - 30 Minutes

• Video Interview with Hiring Manager - 45 Minutes

• Team Interview - (2) - 30 Minutes Each

• Leadership Interview - 30 Minutes 

Why Niche?

• We are a fully flexible workforce empowering our employees to choose to work remotely, in our Pittsburgh office or whatever combination suits you
• Full time, salaried position with competitive compensation in a fast-growing company
• Best-in-class 100% paid employee health plan, including vision and dental and supplemental coverage
• Flexible Paid Time Off Policy
• Stipend that allows you to build your work from home office in a style and function that suits your personal preferences
• Parental leave for all employees (12 weeks fully paid) in addition to short term disability for birthing parents
• Meaningful 401(k) with employer match
• Your ideas and work will make an immediate impact on our company and millions of users
• You will join a team that cares about you, our mission, our work - and celebrates our wins together!

Niche will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future for this opening.  

We are currently hiring in states where we currently have employees: AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MO, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, DC, WV.

Candidates only.  No recruiters or agencies, please. Sorry, we do not offer relocation assistance.

Niche is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. Therefore, we provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law.

All interviews are being held remotely. If there are preparations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please let us know.