Principal Product Manager (Pacific/Mountain Time Zone)

About Nava

Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.

As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff. Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.

Please note: the level of the role will be determined by Nava leadership based on experience and skillset.

Position summary

The Principal Product Manager’s purpose is to work collaboratively with client stakeholders and cross-functional team members to define and execute on the vision and strategy for software products and services. A Principal Product Manager leads teams to iteratively deliver working software that meets user needs and business goals, working collaboratively with designers, engineers, project managers, and stakeholders. Responsibilities include translating user needs and business goals into product requirements, defining user flows and other aspects of system behavior, documenting product specifications, and analyzing product metrics.

What you'll do

• Determine user needs and business requirements through stakeholder interviews and user research, often in collaboration with designer/researchers

• Define the product vision, strategy, and roadmap showing how increments of working software will be delivered to achieve business goals

• Define user flows, system behavior, and other product specifications that enable team members to design and build working software

• Define quarterly or program increment goals to establish near- and mid-term milestones for delivering working software

• Iterate on the product vision, strategy, and roadmap as the team learns from feedback

• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand their goals and constraints, and use this information to determine product priorities

• Build and maintain trust with stakeholders by continuously aligning on a shared vision and set of priorities, and demonstrating how the team is delivering on this vision

• Coordinate across teams to implement software according to the roadmap and adapt based on learnings

• Break software features down into user stories or tasks that can be worked on in a sprint

• Collaborate prioritizing and refining the backlog of user stories and tasks to reflect product priorities

• Define sprint goals; lead and contribute to sprint planning discussions that enable designers and engineers to design and build software features

• Ensure that user stories have clear descriptions and acceptance criteria so that design and engineering tasks can be evaluated for completeness

• Review product designs and working software to reflect the desired behavior and performance

• Engage with stakeholders for approval of key decisions about how software products and services will function

• Coordinate and communicate decisions with the team and with stakeholders, using evidence gained from research and analysis

• Ensure stakeholders are kept up to date on software implementation progress, blockers, and risks

• Ensure teams with dependencies on each other’s work are coordinating and communicating to deliver features that function as expected

• Resolve or escalate blockers that impede successful delivery, involving the team as needed

• Define metrics to be used to track the success of a software product or feature

• Collaborate with other teams to obtain data needed for metrics

• Monitor metrics to ensure software features are performing as expected

• Use data to inform future decisions about what software features to build or improve upon

• Report metrics to stakeholders and team members verbally and in writing

• Run data queries to obtain the most up to date information about how the product or service is performing

• Test behavior of software that is developed in order to validate that features are implemented as expected

• Document errors or any other pertinent observations about software functionality and appearance

• Perform checks to ensure that software is ready to be launched

• Communicate with users about new pr oduct features

• Update user-facing documentation about the product

• Respond to user questions about the software product or service

• Coordinate team response to production incidents that affect the operation of the software product or service

• Set direction across the portfolio and practice

• Share successes and challenges with Nava colleagues so that product managers can learn from each other’s experience

• Conduct interviews and evaluate potential new hires to build Nava teams

• Help to onboard new team members to Nava’s product practice

• Coach and mentor other product managers

• Improve and sustain Nava’s product management operations

• Operate as a Product Management subject matter expert fluidly and with influence across all core practice skills, with deep experience in a key portfolio specialty

• Act as business development lead for their program and portfolio

• Act as a Product Management subject matter expert on proposals for new software development contracts, including participating in market research sessions, proposal writing, and oral interviews

• Actively mentor and coach cross-functional teammates across their program and portfolio, help them grow their skill sets, and contribute that knowledge back to Nava at large

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

• At least 8-10 years of experience, at least 3 years as a product manager

• Experience working with cross-disciplinary product teams to build software

• Experience working with scrum or other agile methodologies

• Excellent written and verbal communication skill

• Strong bias towards action; ability to step up into team gaps and ambiguous situations to create an action plan

• An adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and positive mindset

Compensation

$154,400 — $173,700 USD

Other requirements

All roles at Nava require the following:

Legal authorization to work in the United States

Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired

Work authorization that doesn’t require visa sponsorship, now or in the future

May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract

Perks working with Nava

Health coverage — comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans to support your overall health needs

Insurance coverage — Nava provides disability, life, and accidental death insurance at no cost

Time off — vacation, holidays (including Juneteenth), and floating holidays to rest and recharge

Company holidays — enjoy 12 paid federal holidays each year on top of your regular PTO

Annual bonus — when Nava meets its goals, eligible employees receive a performance-based annual bonus

Parental leave — paid time off for new parents, plus weekly meals delivered to your home

Wellness program — full platform offering physical, mental, & emotional health resources & support tools

Virtual care — see doctors online with no copay through a virtual visit program (depending on available providers)

Sabbatical leave — earn extended unpaid leave after continuous service for personal growth or rest

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