IT Product Manager

The IT Product Manager serves as the strategic owner and visionary for critical IT product domains—with a primary focus on Accounting & Financial Systems (e.g., ERP, AR/AP automation) and a secondary focus on Supply Chain & Logistics ecosystems. Operating in a "Two-in-a-Box" co-leadership model, this role acts as a vital bridge between executive stakeholders, business super users, and technical delivery teams. This hybrid position combines deep Senior Business Analysis and Process Engineering with a product-centric mindset to own the long-term roadmap, ROI, and business value of Jazwares' core application ecosystems. By translating complex business objectives into prioritized technical backlogs and scalable solution designs, this role ensures technology investments—from core ERP financial enhancements and automated revenue cycles to global supply chain workflows—are strategically aligned and built to scale with Jazwares’ growth.

Beyond strategy and analysis, this role serves as the Agile Lead and Scrum Master for dedicated Product-Oriented Delivery organizations, known as "PODs". Heavily leveraging Jira, the IT Product Manager manages the full product lifecycle: refining backlogs, facilitating ceremonies, and driving sprint execution to ensure continuous, reliable delivery. The ideal candidate empowers cross-functional SMEs to navigate technical ambiguity, eliminates "Shadow IT" silos, and delivers high-impact solutions with a relentless focus on user adoption and operational excellence.

Duties and Responsibilities:

 As an IT Product Manager, you will own the end-to-end lifecycle and strategic value of critical IT product domains. By blending senior analytical rigor with high-level Agile POD leadership, you will be responsible for defining product visions, prioritizing complex backlogs in Jira, and orchestrating cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact technical solutions.

Strategic Vision: Own the yearly Product Roadmap for your domain, ensuring alignment with corporate goals and IT strategic pillars.

Backlog Authority: Act as the final decision-maker for backlog prioritization, weighing business urgency against technical feasibility.

Agile Orchestration: Drive POD execution excellence by heavily leveraging Jira to manage continuous delivery and eliminate "Shadow IT" silos.

Strategic Co-Leadership: Partner in a "Two-in-a-Box" model with Business Product Owners to align technical roadmaps with functional business processes, ensuring that product evolution directly drives measurable outcomes and ROI.

Agile & Product Leadership

POD Leadership & Scrum Mastery: Lead all Agile ceremonies (stand-ups, sprint planning, grooming, retrospectives) for dedicated product PODs to ensure team alignment and unblock technical impediments.

Product Roadmap & Backlog Management: Serve as the primary architect of the product backlog in Jira, ensuring epics and user stories are strategically structured to deliver continuous business value.

Executive Stakeholder Prioritization: Partner with Business Sponsors and business leaders to define and prioritize product features based on ROI and revenue impact.

Value-Based Metrics & Reporting: Beyond team velocity, track and communicate Business Value Metrics (e.g., user adoption, process efficiency gains)  to provide visibility to the PMO Steering Committee.

Agile Transformation & Mentorship: Lead the IT department’s shift from project-based work to a product-centric model, coaching teams on advanced Jira workflows and "spikes" for innovation.

Product Analysis & Requirements Management

Product Discovery & Lifecycle Management: Lead the discovery phase for new product features, identifying capability gaps and translating high-level business desires into detailed technical specs.

Advanced User Stories & Acceptance Criteria: Define the "Definition of Done"  for complex integrations, ensuring the development team has absolute clarity on functional requirements.

Quality Assurance & Product Integrity: Partner with QA and developers to ensure the final product aligns with the original vision, managing the transition from project "Go-Live" to Business as Usual (BAU) operations.

Continuous Enablement: Coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and "Train-the-Trainer" sessions to ensure global adoption of product updates.

Product Engineering & Solution Architecture

Workflow Optimization & Scaling: Engineer optimized workflows for your product domain (e.g., Accounting & Finance and/or Supply Chain) to drive organizational efficiency as Jazwares scales beyond $1B.

Automation-First Strategy: Identify opportunities to automate manual tasks within your application suite to reduce technical debt.

Compliance & Security Architecture: Ensure all product enhancements comply with Jazwares security protocols and overall technology roadmaps.

Cross-Product Interdependency Management: Manage API and data-mapping architectures across the IT portfolio to ensure a single source of truth.

Change Management Leadership: Own the organizational change management plan for your product, ensuring new features are adopted seamlessly and training "champions" to lead their teams.

Functional Domain Mastery & Team Ownership

As an IT Product Manager, you will serve as the Agile Lead and strategic visionary for one or more continuous, cross-functional Product Teams (PODs). The ideal candidate must possess deep operational knowledge of end-to-end Accounting & Financial Systems (Primary Focus), Product Information Management, and the Supply Chain Management (SCM) lifecycle (Secondary Focus). You will demonstrate a refined ability to orchestrate the flow of data between core ERPs, planning modules, and logistics platforms.

1. Accounting and Finance Systems

The Mission: Identify, prioritize, and plan the continuous product roadmap for core ERP and financial automation systems, ensuring seamless Order-to-Cash (O2C) and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) cycles.

Core Tech Stack: Sage X3 (Financial Modules) and HighRadius (AR/AP Automation).

Domain Expertise Required: * Lead ERP Transformations: Direct the full lifecycle of large-scale financial applications, managing complex migrations, upgrades, and global rollouts without disrupting critical accounting month-end close cycles.

Strategic Stakeholder Partnership: Partner in a "Two-in-a-Box" model with Finance executives (e.g., Corporate Controller) to translate strategic financial goals into actionable, prioritized Jira backlogs.

Solution Design & Integration: Map current and future state data flows to identify gaps, proposing automation options that minimize technical debt across the enterprise architecture.

Vendor & Release Management: Orchestrate high-level vendor relationships (e.g., NexTec, HighRadius) and manage rigorous release schedules to ensure system stability and compliance.

Lead ERP & Core System Transformations: Direct the full lifecycle of large-scale ERP and Corporate Application implementations and support (e.g. P2P, Finance), managing complex migrations, upgrades, and global rollouts. Knowledge of High Radius and Sage X3 a plus.

Architectural Strategy & Governance: Partner with Enterprise Architects to define and enforce solution standards, ensuring all application projects align with the broader IT roadmap, security protocols, and integration strategies.

2. Product Information Management (PIM)

The Mission: Identify, prioritize, and plan all product information and digital asset management efforts across global retailers and D2C channels.

Core Tech Stack: Salsify (PIM) and Bynder (DAM).

Domain Expertise Required: Proven experience working with Creative Services and Sales Ops Product Owners to identify data gaps, map API integrations, and drive user adoption to ensure a "Single Source of Truth" for global product content.

3. Source-to-Pay

The Mission: Partner directly with Procurement, Finance, and Licensing to manage the frictionless flow of purchasing, vendor data, and payables.

Core Tech Stack: Sage X3 (PO Module), DocLink, and HighRadius.

Domain Expertise Required: Ability to manage high-level integrations within the ERP ecosystem, specifically ensuring seamless procurement workflows and automated invoicing.

4. Warehouse Management

The Mission: Partner with Logistics, Warehousing, and Accounting to orchestrate the physical fulfillment of goods across Jazwares’ global footprint and five separate 3PLs.

Core Tech Stack: TrueCommerce EDI, Sage X3 (Inventory & Logistics modules), and HighJump WMS.

Domain Expertise Required: Deep operational knowledge of global distribution, EDI order processing, and warehouse management systems.

5. Planning & Forecasting

The Mission: Partner with Sales Planning Ops and Corporate Strategy to leverage data for market anticipation and supply alignment.

Core Tech Stack: Arkieva, Sage X3 (Product & Customer modules), Databricks, and Sigma BI.

Domain Expertise Required: Proven experience leveraging demand planning tools (like Arkieva) and hyperscale BI to translate complex business forecasts into actionable production schedules and supply chain triggers.

Manages People: No

 Qualifications:

Education & Years of Related Experience

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, Computer Science, System Engineering, or a closely related field.

Overall Experience: 5-7+ years of progressive experience in IT Product Management, Business Analysis, Business Process Architecture, or IT Project delivery. Proven experience managing the full product lifecycle for enterprise applications is highly preferred.

Scrum & Agile Leadership: 3+ years of dedicated experience acting as a Scrum Master or Product Lead, managing Agile ceremonies and driving continuous delivery for dedicated PODs in a fast-paced environment.

Tool Proficiency (Mandatory): Expert-level hands-on administrative and operational experience with Jira and Confluence, including advanced backlog structuring and dashboard reporting.

Technical Skills: Strong proficiency in process mapping tools (MS Visio, Lucidchart), spreadsheets, and a demonstrable understanding of relational database queries (Microsoft SQL Server) to support data-driven product decisions.

Process Engineering: Proven track record of mapping complex "As-Is" and "To-Be" workflows, with experience driving process automation and API integration mapping across application ecosystems.

Global Experience (Preferred): Prior experience working in a global, matrixed corporate environment. Multilingual capabilities are a strong plus.

Certifications (Highly Preferred): Certified Product Owner (CSPO), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), or Lean Six Sigma certification.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Product Vision & Prioritization: Ability to own and prioritize a complex product backlog based on business value, ROI, and executive strategic pillars.

Independent Product Execution: Proven ability to manage the entire lifecycle of an IT product domain, leading process redesigns and change management activities with minimal supervision.

Agile & POD Mastery: Deep knowledge of Agile principles with the ability to act as a strategic Lead for cross-functional PODs, fostering a culture of accountability and unblocking delivery silos.

Strategic Communication & Storytelling: Highly adept at translating technical jargon for business leaders to distill technical progress into clear business value narratives.

Advanced Tooling Capability: Expert operational capability within Jira, Smartsheet, and Confluence for managing "spikes," epics, and t-shirt sizing for executive visibility.

Resilience & Navigation: Highly adaptable with a flexible approach to navigating ambiguity and fast-changing priorities within a growing $1B+ corporate environment.

Relationship Management & Training: Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to partner with Business Super Users and SMEs, confidently facilitating "Train-the-Trainer" sessions to ensure high product adoption.

Working Conditions:

 Working Conditions 

Environment: Office

Schedule: Regular Office Schedule

Physical Requirements: Sedentary; Lifting to 10 lbs.

Travel Required: None

This position description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications associated with the job. An individual must be able to perform all of the duties and responsibilities listed in a fully competent manner to be considered successful in the position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential duties and responsibilities.

#updated04-26