Manager - Data Hub Product

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture.  The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes.  Our employees and our members come FIRST.  Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.  In 2021, Costco contributed over $58 million to organizations such as United Way and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco ranks seventh in Forbes “World’s Best Employers”.

As a member of the IT Management Team, you are responsible for managing, developing, and leading a team of employees. Your role includes leading the specific functional responsibilities of your team, which involves overseeing team performance and deliverables. However, your role as a leader within our organization requires more than the management of resources and day-to-day operations. As a steward of the company, you are charged with the development and execution of your team’s strategic vision and plan and ensuring that your team’s actions align with the larger goals of the company and the IT Division.

The Data Hub Product Manager will be responsible for partnering with vertical and horizontal teams in defining, designing, developing, and delivering enhancements to the Data Hub platform; playing a key role in the modernization of our legacy systems worldwide. This position oversees the governance, practices, and execution of both the ongoing maintenance of the platform as well as working to build new functionality. The manager will also be responsible for partnering with IT and business teams to ensure requirements and priorities are kept current following every release.

Additionally, this role is responsible for setting a product vision and strategy, drawing out the most value from a product and guiding the technical team to execute on the product vision. The Manager over Data Hub Product will also work closely with IT architects and other IT technical leads to ensure the solution effectively addresses program priorities while maintaining technical integrity.

As the primary conduit between your employees and upper leadership, your role in communicating and modeling the values and guiding principles of our company culture is of vital importance. All members of IT Management should strive to consciously and consistently foster a culture of engagement, trust, and “open door” communication. 

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

●      INTEGRITY: When achieving benchmarks and goals, use methods/strategies that are consistent with the Code of Ethics and the Standard of Ethics for Managers and Supervisors. Always leads by example. Appropriately handles employee concerns and follows through to resolution.

●      MEMBER SERVICE: Provides and ensures staff provides an exceptional member experience.

●      ADMINISTRATION: Ensures proper department coverage (writing schedule and break aids if needed). Understands department budget, able to research and explain budget variances.

●      MANAGING PERFORMANCE: Coaches and mentors employees to provide support and guidance. Has regular open and honest conversations with employees to discuss work performance and career development. Identifies learning opportunities to strengthen employee knowledge, skill and ability.

●      COMMUNICATION: Regularly shares information with employees via meetings and one-on-one conversations. Successfully navigates difficult conversations with employees, members, and suppliers. Listens, expresses empathy and adapts to get points across. Addresses issues immediately to ensure a timely resolution and to avoid escalating the situation. Consistently demonstrates business knowledge during interactions with senior management.

●      SELF-MANAGEMENT: Demonstrates sound judgment, taking a partner when necessary. Ability to maintain self-control in the face of hostility or provocation or in intense, hectic situations.

●      INCLUSION: Encourages different approaches and ideas to work and to accomplish goals. Seeks employee input. Takes the time to get to know or reach out to candidates who show potential that may not come forward on their own.

●      COMPLIANCE AND SAFETY: Takes measures to ensure employee and member information is kept confidential and adheres to IS security policy.

●      Owns the overall vision and roadmap of a given product by collaborating with solution architects, value stream owners, business stakeholders, and others to lead the ideation, technical development, and launch of new features and capabilities.

●      Collaborates with business and IT stakeholders to define and prioritize the features and epics which yield the highest business benefit for the organization.

●      Supports teams as an all-around product resource explaining and clarifying functionality, demonstrating benefits, and communicating new ideas to help grow the business.

●      Collaborates with IT architects and IT technical leads to understand the need to address technical debt and support technical innovation.

●      Leads activities to support the delivery of new functionality including product launch communications, training materials, user acceptance testing, business validation, success criteria measurement and analysis, and post-deployment analysis to identify improvements.

●      Participates in program ceremonies (e.g., product increment planning sessions, retrospectives, etc.).

●      Facilitates system demos to demonstrate the enablement of new features and capabilities integrated across several products to program stakeholders.

●      Coordinates the development and maintenance of a given product through the collaboration and partnership with internal customers, vendors, and strategic partners.

●      Defines the product roadmap and collaborates with Product Owners and Release Managers to create release plans and backlogs.

●      Writes features and success criteria with key stakeholders and business leaders.

●      Creates and refines the product roadmap based on insights gained from business and IT feedback.

●      Makes final business decisions related to the product with input from business and technology stakeholders.

●      Collaborates with business stakeholders to identify and explore new opportunities (e.g., promotions, partnerships) to extend products to new customers, verticals, and late adopters.

●      Serves the organization as the subject matter expert with respect to competition, industry trends, technological advances, and changing customer needs.

●      Demonstrates thought leadership and champions the product vision across the company.

●      Participates and guides requirements gathering and user story preparation; ensures the appropriate acceptance criteria is included and approved globally.

●      Assists in creating or creates the testing scripts to validate that the business requirements features are met.

●      Ensures all necessary business stakeholder approvals have been attained prior to any production deployment.

●      Organizes and executes user acceptance and business acceptance testing.

●      Identifies critical success factors and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and report on release quality and also identifies notable issues along with recommendations for resolution.

●      Partners with IT Release and Delivery management to ensure proper validation of release is handled and communicated in production.

●      Partners with the IT development teams to ensure all development completed successfully before turning over to the business.

●      Identifies the appropriate team members and assists or develops the right test cases and scenarios to support their acceptance criteria.

●      Manages initiatives across multiple teams to drive project quality, reliability, scalability, and security.

●      Assists with general support requirements for different business areas in each of the applications used.

REQUIRED

●      3 years’ experience in distributed system deployments.

●      3 years’ experience in IT operations, business team management or application management.

●      3 years’ experience in business relationship management, including Executive level stakeholders.

●      3 years’ experience driving core system technologies.

●      Proven track record for successful delivery of projects and working cross-functionally with business and IT.

●      Experience developing strategies with cross-functional teams across a wide variety of disciplines.

●      Experience with data, API disciplines, Cloud/Azure Platform Services, Data Modeling, Data Engineering, API Management.

●      Able to work independently.

●      Ability to manage multiple complex projects concurrently.

●      Familiar with the overall solution, architecture, version management, and code deployment processes.

●      Excellent interpersonal and diplomatic skills as well as a positive attitude.

●      Good knowledge of or ability to quickly learn key Costco business functions and operations.

●      Strong communication skills, both oral and written, including presentation skills; communicates effectively with all levels of management and technical teams/suppliers.

●      Proven leadership skills; demonstrated team-building skills with ability to influence and motivate team members that report to other groups in the organization.

●      Extreme responsiveness with a strong sense of urgency; experience in negotiating timelines and deliverables.

●      Adept at assessing issues with ability to devise workable solutions quickly responding appropriately.

●      Proven ability to support and collaborate with multiple Project Managers, Business Sponsors, and IT teams within a Product

●      Excellent organizational and planning skills, with experience building tactical plans.

●      Flexible, must be able to change priorities quickly, focus on new ones without distraction, able to deal with conflict and work under pressure to meet deliverable dates/timelines.

●      Experience with executing project governance including change control and issue/risk management.

●      Scheduling flexibility to meet the needs of the business including evenings and weekends installs.

Recommended

●      Experience with projects focused on infrastructures and software solutions.

●      Experience working within an Agile development framework.

●      Proficient in the use of the Google products: email, spreadsheet, document, presentation, analytics.

Required Documents

●      Cover Letter

●      Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.  

Apart from any religious or disability considerations, open availability is needed to meet the needs of the business.  If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.

Salary : $58 - $0