Senior Product Manager - Academic Ops at Kuali

United States

$131k - $152k

<div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">About the Role</span></b></div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> <p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">We&#x2019;re looking for a Senior Product Manager &#x2013; Academic Operations to lead the strategy, vision, and execution of Kuali&#x2019;s academic operations product suite.&#xa0; As Sr. Product Manager, you&#x2019;ll define and deliver solutions that streamline curriculum management, catalog, scheduling, degree audit, and advising workflows for higher education institutions.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">&#xa0;<br> You&#x2019;ll collaborate cross-functionally with design, engineering, and customer success teams to ensure our products empower universities to operate efficiently and deliver exceptional student experiences.&#xa0;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">&#xa0;</p> <p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;">&#xa0;<b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">Who are we?&#xa0;</span></b></p> Kuali builds software solutions for higher education. We help our customers &#x2014; colleges &amp; universities &#x2014; focus on providing a fantastic education to students by decreasing their administrative costs. We work in a competitive space, ripe for innovation, with users ready to be delighted.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> <br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> <b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">Our Culture</span></span></b><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> As a company, we are guided by our <a href="https://www.kuali.co/jobs#values" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(22, 108, 241); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">cultural values:</a></div> <ul style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; margin: 1em 0px; list-style: disc; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Iterate to evolve</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Cultivate openness</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Act with accountability</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Assume the best</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Practice humility</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Deliver amazing experiences</li> </ul> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">At Kuali, we learn from and teach each other, we practice transparency and empathy, we delight in delivering value to our customers, and we WIN!</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">&#xa0;</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We work remotely and have for years. Distributed work is in our bones, with a history of institutions working across state lines on open-source software for more than ten years. Our employees each work in the environment where they&#x2019;re happiest, from Pennsylvania to Seattle. We work consciously to create a collaborative and healthy remote work culture, and we travel to meet in person a few times each year.&#xa0;</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> <b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">Everyone should love their work.</span></span></b></div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">At Kuali, we embrace diversity and inclusion at every level. We value and respect individuals from all backgrounds, recognizing that a rich tapestry of experiences and perspectives fuels our success as a company and enriches our collective human experience.</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> <b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">What you&#x2019;ll be responsible for</span></span></b></div> <ul style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 1em 0px; list-style: disc; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: InterVariable, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Own the product backlog for Kuali Research, ensuring clarity, prioritization, and alignment with strategic goals.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Translate customer feedback, institutional requirements, and product vision into actionable user stories and acceptance criteria.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Collaborate daily with engineering and design teams to ensure timely, high&#x2011;quality delivery.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Partner with Product Managers to refine roadmap priorities and validate outcomes against customer needs.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Support release planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives to drive continuous improvement.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Serve as the voice of the customer within the scrum team, ensuring solutions meet real&#x2011;world research administration challenges.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Monitor product performance and collaborate on data&#x2011;driven decisions to enhance usability and adoption.</li> </ul> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: InterVariable, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">&#xa0;</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">About you</span></span></b></div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">We&#x2019;re looking for curious, enthusiastic, empathetic people to solve problems, execute on ideas, advocate for the customer, and contribute to a team culture built on trust and mutual respect.&#xa0;<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> We build and support systems using both Java and Node.js/React. We believe that great developers can always learn new tools. Above any specific tech stack, we&#x2019;re looking for versatile developers &#x2014; those who know when to think big and when to act small, and who are comfortable in both greenfield and refactoring projects.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"> We believe the best results are created by teams who represent a broad range of ideas and perspectives. We value employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences.</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">&#xa0;</div> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;">Ideal candidates have experience with:</b></span></div> <ul> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Define and execute the product strategy and roadmap for Kuali&#x2019;s Academic Operations portfolio, aligning investments with company strategy and measurable customer and business outcomes.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Own and communicate a compelling strategic narrative for Academic Operations, including its vision, value proposition, competitive differentiation, and intended customer outcomes.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Develop a deep understanding of the higher education market, institutional needs, customer segments, competitive landscape, and relevant regulatory trends.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Partner closely with customers and internal stakeholders to identify and validate opportunities that improve institutional efficiency, user experience, and student success.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Translate market insights, product data, customer feedback, and user research into clearly defined problems, desired outcomes, hypotheses, requirements, and roadmap priorities.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Build evidence-based business cases for product investments, considering customer value, market potential, revenue impact, cost, risk, and resource requirements.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Establish clear prioritization frameworks and make informed tradeoffs among customer needs, business objectives, technical considerations, and available capacity.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Partner with Engineering and Design throughout discovery and delivery to evaluate feasibility, manage scope and dependencies, and deliver accessible, scalable, and high-quality solutions.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Lead cross-functional teams through product discovery, validation, prioritization, development, launch, adoption, and continuous improvement.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Partner with Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Services, and Implementation to develop positioning, support go-to-market execution, enable customer-facing teams, and drive product adoption.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Contribute to packaging, pricing, and commercialization decisions that strengthen the portfolio&#x2019;s market position and business performance.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Define product KPIs and use quantitative and qualitative insights to measure adoption, customer satisfaction, retention, operational performance, and customer and business outcomes.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Monitor product performance following launch and use the results to continuously improve the product and inform future investment decisions.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Identify and manage product risks and dependencies, including data privacy, security, accessibility, compliance, integration, scalability, and responsible AI use.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Communicate product strategy, priorities, decisions, progress, performance, and risks clearly to executive leaders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Use AI to improve the quality, speed, and throughput of product work while championing its responsible and effective use throughout the product development process.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Contribute to the continued development of Kuali&#x2019;s product management practices, tools, and standards, including its AI-powered product operating system.<br> </li> </ul> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;">We&#x2019;d be delighted if you bring experience with:</span></b></div> <ul> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">7+ years of product management experience, including 3+ years in SaaS or enterprise software with proven ability to achieve business outcomes</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Deep understanding of the higher education market</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Proven success in defining and launching impactful products in complex domains, and managing a multi-module portfolio.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Strong analytical, communication, and stakeholder management skills.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Experience working in agile environments and leading cross-functional teams.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Passion for improving education through technology.</li> </ul> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;"><b>Preferred Qualifications</b></div> <ul> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Experience with academic ERP or SIS integrations.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Familiarity with data-driven decision-making and product analytics tools.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Background in Higher Education Academic Operations i</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">A collaborative, curious, and mission-driven mindset.<br> </li> </ul> <div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: Arimo, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; color: rgb(70, 141, 203);">Perks</span></span></b></div> <ul style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; margin: 12px 0px; list-style: disc; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: InterVariable, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Remote-first work</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Top-of-the-line equipment of your choice to get your job done</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">A truly exceptional benefits package including full premium coverage for employee and dependent medical and dental care</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">401(k) matching</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Employee stock option plan</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Paid Maternity/Parental leave</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">All the paid time off you need (just work it out with your manager)</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Encouragement and support in learning and improving your skill-sets.</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Space to work on self-driven projects during quarterly &#x201c;hack weeks&#x201d;</li> <li style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;">Employee resource groups and community events</li> </ul> </div><br>