VP of Product Management
About Us:
At Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT), we’re unlocking the power of educator-created content. More than 2 out of 3 teachers in the U.S., Canada, and Australia come to TpT every year to get teacher-tested, engaging, and rigorous materials. What began as a humble exchange for teachers looking to share lesson plans has since exploded into a massive marketplace where teachers have created more than 3 million resources for all aspects of PreK-12 education. More than five million educators worldwide (including teachers, administrators, and parents) have downloaded TpT resources more than a billion times. According to Fast Company, Teachers Pay Teachers is one of the top 50 Most Innovative Companies in the world! If you haven’t heard of TpT yet and want to learn more, just ask a teacher. Two out of three teachers currently use TpT.
Who we are looking for:
We’re a team of good people doing great things. We listen first. We love our work. And we are all teachers and learners in whatever we do. We believe that productivity is never an accident. It’s the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, passionate team work, and focused effort. We want every day to be fun and to matter.
In this role, we’re looking for a great leader who can head up our product management function.
Role description:
TpT is seeking an experienced leader to grow and lead our world-class product management team in NYC and build out our user research function.
Building products that succeed only happens if you are passionate about empowering your team and committed to providing critical guidance, supportive process, and creative input. You are only satisfied when you and your teams are constantly learning, growing, and delivering truly great products to the world. You are a strong communicator who can lead people to realize the power of what we do. Essential to that is understanding the why, the what, and the how of everything we do.
Responsibilities:
Create great products
- Empower teams to build innovative and inspiring products that solve real problems for educators and students
- Build and articulate a vision that connects the products we build to our mission and vision
- Work collaboratively to define priorities
- Ensure the products we build are innovative and solve real problems for educators and students
- Create products that uplift, connect, and inspire
- Ensure every product has a clear goal, measurable success factors and a path to continual improvement
- Ask questions to seek and understand
- Partner with Marketing, Engineering, Design, Legal, Community, and all other functions to ensure that we build products that solve the right problems for real people
- Continually analyze shifts in our educators’ needs and offer ideas to help define and refine the product strategy
Enable teams to build great things
- Ensure that our processes allow product managers and designers to tap into their creativity and build lithely. Processes should offer guidance and structure for PMs to draw upon throughout the product life-cycle
- Communicate openly with teams and our teacher community about what your team is building and why
Build great teams
- Recruit and grow world-class product managers who have awesome skills and embody our core values
- Celebrate our culture externally with opinion makers, candidates, and the broader market.
- Lead the team to elicit the best of every team member -- their creativity, their drive, and their intellect should all be part of the project
- Balance a strong product sense, gather the best product ideas from the TpT community, and craft a plan to bring those product ideas into fruition
Create Understanding & Alignment
- Create partnerships among product managers and their partners in design, research, engineering, marketing, finance, community and other groups in the org.
- Ensure that other leaders in the organization understand your work.
- Create clarity and understanding among senior leaders in the company about how product plans align to overall strategy.
- Ensure that anyone across the organization understands our product plans and rationales through clear, succinct, story-driven communication.
Qualifications:
- 10+ years of experience in product management
- Track record of hiring and leading exceptional teams
- Strong product instinct and track record of taking successful products from idea, to launch, to scale, with a portfolio of examples to share with us
- Ability to communicate complex technical issues simply and convincingly to a wide range of audiences
- Excellent spoken and written communication skills
- Ability to write, defend, and execute on business cases
- Technical aptitude and attention to detail
Qualities for a successful candidate:
- Believe in our mission to connect and empower teachers
- Appreciate feedback and value honest, thoughtful critique
- Perform well in a fast-paced, startup environment
- Be a team player: team and impact come first
- Demonstrate versatility, intellectual curiosity, creativity, and analytical thinking
- Have the ability to work independently, as well as within a larger team environment on complex projects, cross-functional collaboration and strategic decision-making.
- Maintain the mindset that no job is too big or small, and have the ability to do whatever it takes to get the job done well and efficiently
Extra Credit:
- BA/BS in Computer Science or related technical field
- Education or teaching experience
Extracurriculars:
- Parental leave for both mothers and fathers to be able to take some quality time in bonding with their new addition to their family
- Comprehensive Medical & Dental Benefits
- Mother’s Room
- Quiet Room
- Company Events (Bring Your Child to Work Day, Field Day, Camp TpT, Hackathons etc.)
Here at TpT we value Diversity & Inclusion and encourage people to bring their most authentic selves to work. We cultivate an environment where people are recognized and celebrated for their individuality.
Any TpT applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the interview process should contact the TpT People Ops Team ([email protected]) to make the need for an accommodation known.