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HMH

Senior Technical Product Manager

🇺🇸 Remote - US

🕑 Full-Time

💰 $125K - $140K

💻 Product Development

🗓️ April 24th, 2025

Edtech.com's Summary

NWEA, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is hiring a Senior Technical Product Manager. This role involves driving product initiatives, aligning product discovery and delivery with business priorities, developing product release plans, and collaborating with various teams to ensure alignment with organizational goals. The manager will focus on solution exploration, product feature design, and support launch planning while ensuring the fulfillment of business objectives.
 
Highlights 
  • Drive product initiatives and align with business priorities
  • Develop product release plans and support feature design
  • Collaborate with Product, Architecture, User Experience and Engineering teams
  • Required familiarity with Agile Development and Human-Centered Design
  • Compensation: $125k – $140k
  • Bachelor's degree required, preferably in education, technical, or business fields
  • Minimum of 3 years experience in product management or related field
  • Experience in EdTech and launching complex technology products preferred
  • Strong project management and communication skills required
  • Ability to travel domestically up to 25% as needed

Senior Technical Product Manager Full Description

Job Title: Senior Technical Product Manager 
Location: Remote 
 
Who We Are 
NWEA® is a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that supports students and educators through research, assessment solutions, policy and advocacy services, professional learning and school improvement services that fight for equity, drive classroom impact and push for systemic change in our educational communities. For nearly 50 years, NWEA has developed innovative pre-K–12 assessments, including their flagship interim assessment, MAP® Growth™ and their reading fluency and comprehension assessment, MAP® Reading Fluency™. For more information, visit NWEA.org to learn more. 
 
What You’ll Do 
The Sr. Technical Product Manager is a strategic, individual contributor role within the NWEA division of HMH. Primary responsibilities include driving product initiatives through exploration activities and ensuring product discovery and delivery outcomes align with business priorities in support of HMH’s strategy and mission.  This includes converting product vision into product roadmap, leading solution exploration activities, developing product release plans, supporting product feature design, clarifying product development priorities, and collaborating with stakeholders across product and technology groups to achieve desired business outcomes. 
 
Responsibilities

Solution Discovery & Delivery:
  • Support Product Managers in roadmap definition work to ensure product problems and opportunities are clearly defined with measurable outcomes.
  • Lead solution exploration activities to establish high level solutions, decompose problems into incremental value deliverables, identify dependencies and risks, develop product release plans, and provide high-level requirements to development teams.
  • Responsible for ensuring NWEA business objectives are met through the delivery of key product initiatives that align with business priorities, support our mission, and meet goals for profitability and user satisfaction.  
  • Collaborate with Product, Architecture, User Experience Research, Design and Engineering teams to discover solutions to market problems and ensure delivery of product roadmaps. 
  • Support launch planning with Product Managers and stakeholders to ensure comprehensive market readiness from a business unit perspective.
  • Understand the impact NWEA & HMH products and services have on the lives of students, teachers, parents/caregivers, and champion equitable solutions and inclusive design practices.  
  • Develop, maintain, and communicate a clear vision, strategy, roadmap, and backlog in partnership with Product Manager(s) and Product Owner(s).  

Support Current Products:
  • Support technical needs of products in collaboration with Product Managers including consultation on RFP responses, incident management, sales support and review of product documentation/training materials.
  • Serve as product expert for internal stakeholders and liaison between product and technology teams.
  • Manage vendor relationships to expedite efficient product development and operational support of NWEA Product Strategy.       

Understand Market Needs & Gather Feedback:
  • Partner with the business product manager(s) to evolve product vision, strategy and roadmap based on market needs and business objectives.
  • Develop knowledge of and empathy for user needs by engaging with current and prospective customers through on-site observation, interviews, and research sessions.
  • Assess technology trends, and current and emerging competitive products in order to inform product direction and influence technology strategy.
  • Analyze research findings, customer feedback and product usage data to evaluate outcomes of product releases and inform future product roadmap.
  • Support beta and pilot programs to gather early customer feedback and support a successful large-scale launch.

Provide Cross Functional Collaboration & Communication: 
  • Facilitate collaboration and communication across the product team, technology teams, and a wide variety of internal stakeholder groups.
  • Build and maintain effective working relationships across stakeholder groups to align expectations, negotiate tradeoffs and balance competing constraints in order to maximize progress towards product objectives.
  • Assist in the creation and maintenance of product value propositions, market requirements, and product goals.
  • Work with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure products are meeting market needs, socialize product vision, strategy, and planning outcomes.

What You’ll Need
  • At least 3 years in product management, product development, business analysis, or similar fields. Minimum 1 year in product management specific to the area of emphasis.
  • Proven track record in developing and launching complex technology products.
  • Familiarity with Agile Development and Human Centered Design practices. 
  • Bachelor's degree in education, technical, or business fields. MBA or advanced degree, preferred.
  • Experience in EdTech and large-scale testing or assessment solutions.
  • Ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams in a fast-changing environment.
  • Skilled at working independently and navigating complex challenges with minimal direction.
  • Proven ability to drive outcomes, make sound decisions quickly, and collaborate effectively across product and technology teams.   
  • Strong project management skills, with the ability to balance scope, time, cost, risk, and quality while managing multiple initiatives and aligning with organizational priorities. 
  • Excellent communication skills—able to clearly articulate ideas and information to business leaders, stakeholders, and technical teams, both verbally and in writing, tailored to the audience. 
  • Experienced in leading and coordinating the following:
        • Solution discovery and Roadmap planning
        • High-level scope and requirements documents, user personas, and use cases.
        • Launching new and established software products and services
        • Establish and report on product KPI’s and metrics.
  • Willing and able to travel domestically up to 25% as needed.
  • Knowledge of accessibility and accommodation requirements related to user interface development
  • Knowledge of Pragmatic Marketing framework is a plus.

Physical requirements:
  • Might be in a stationary position for a considerable time (sitting and/or standing).
  • Constantly operates a computer and other digital devices
  • Ability to collaborate with colleagues via online meetings.
  • Ability to work in cross functional teams as well as work independently.

Salary range: 125k – 140k.

Application Deadline:
The application window for this position is anticipated to close on May 12, 2025. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. The posting may be available after this date but is not guaranteed.

HMH is fully committed to Equal Employment Opportunity and to attracting, retaining, developing and promoting the most qualified employees without regard to race, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, family status, marital status, pregnancy, gender identity, ethnic/national origin, ancestry, age, disability, military status, genetic predisposition, citizenship status, status as a disabled veteran, recently separated veteran, Armed Forces service medal veteran, other covered veteran, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. We are dedicated to providing a work environment free from discrimination and harassment, and where employees are treated with respect and dignity. We actively participate in E-Verify.
 
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