Director of Product Management

POSITION SUMMARY: The Director of Product Management will interact with senior management in all disciplines within the organization to lead and champion product planning and manage new and existing product rollouts.

Responsibilities:

• This role will be at the core of executing a broad-based product strategy encompassing a three to five-year detailed product roadmap and vision
• The Director of Product Management will be responsible for the complete lifecycle of the assigned product line, ensuring product requirements and deadlines are consistently and reliably met
• This position also entails market research, launch planning, and achieving growth and revenue targets in conjunction with the commercial team
• The individual will work closely with customers, regulatory agencies, sales and marketing organizations to ensure that market requirements and customer needs are well defined
• The Director of Product Management will be at the forefront of Daily Racing Form’s continuing mission to maintain a leadership position in the market through effective executions of the product strategy
• Responsible for the ideation, development, and launch of new products
• Drive shared vision across the organization on strategic products, business priorities, and business case assessment
• Track new market opportunities and identify areas prime for innovation within the competitive landscape
• Lead the definition of product requirements, on-going prioritization, and trade-off discussions
• Develop and analyze success metrics
• Maintain product roadmap and regular communication to stakeholders
• Build strong working relationships with business partner
• Stay abreast of latest advancements in technology, competition, industry developments, and regulatory environment
• Support regional sales and marketing teams with associated product launches, customer engagements, and industry events
• Work closely with Product Leads to maintain the feature pipeline with your squad. 
• Facilitate prioritization discussions with team, advocating for the stakeholders in the process. 
• Ensure that external stakeholders and leadership are all updated with changes and development of the pipeline.
• Develop successful iterative processes that have requires razor sharp scoping.
• Work with your team to understand and define constraints so you can build great products quickly with nothing more and nothing less than what is needed.
• Ensure detailed but simple functional specs are available so that your whole team can be on the same page.
• Ensure product designers have the product and stakeholder understanding—as well as a defined scope—to make sure they can do their best work.
• Ensure feedback is given on designs and maintain Product involvement with working code as it progresses so your team can deliver product with great UX.
• Help your team break up projects to keep iterations small and manageable ensuring you can ship quickly and start learning early.
• Field interference for your team when appropriate. Anticipate roadblocks and work quickly to identify and fix blocking issues.
• Manage your team’s resource needs and anticipate, identify and resolve conflicts with other squads and tribes.
• Understand the mission of your team and how it relates to the larger company mission. Use that knowledge to motivate and excite your team about the problems you are solving and products you are building.
• Work with your team to develop measurable goals that help you and your squad measure progress towards your mission.
• Maintain an intimate understanding of the needs of your stakeholders and end-users and how they use your product.
• Form great relationships with key members and be a constant resource for them. Know their motivations, behavior, business domain, and company mission (for internal teams) well enough to anticipate needs they might not realize they have.
• Understand technology on a level that helps you help developers make decisions about how to architect projects that balance fast development and future feature expansion.
• Keep abreast of what other products and companies are doing in your space and pass on that knowledge to your team.
• In conjunction with Product Leads, come up with creative ways to solve problems and focus the team around product goals that might not be the same as what everyone else is doing. In addition, you should help foster an environment that promotes creative thinking among your entire team.

Minimum Requirements:

• 4-6 years of software product management experience 
• Minimum BS Degree or equivalent industry experience required
• Experience in product management, strategy development, and writing business cases
• Experience writing requirements and building consensus around the requirements
• Must be able to comprehend technical challenges, understand limitations and impact to the customer, and manage risk in reviewing technology options and trade-offs
• Experience working in cross-functional teams, especially with system engineers, project managers, software developers and other peers
• The ideal candidate will have a thorough understanding of product development processes
• Comfortable with ambiguity; welcomes the challenge of developing new ideas and approaches in a semi-unstructured environment
• Must be a “team-player” with the ability to work within collaborative environments to organize and facilitate program reviews, roadmap reviews, new product investigations, and business case reviews
• Strong communicator – part of the Director of Product Management’s role is to be an advocate for the product vision and the candidate must be able to effectively engage and excite their colleagues
• Strong problem-solving skills, analytical and market research skills
• Strong competency in using data to analyze the customer journey and product feature value 

DISCLAIMER:

This job posting is intended to describe the general nature of this position.  It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required. Employee benefits may vary by location, position, length of service and employment status. Final candidates will be required to complete a drug test and background check. Many positions will require a state gaming license. Affinity Gaming is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, gender, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, or marital status. Affinity Gaming is an E-Verify Employer.

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