The City of Boston collects several billion dollars in annual revenue and distributes tens of millions through grant programs. We believe that when funds are exchanged, constituent experiences should be easy to navigate and accessible. The Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) is focused on partnering with City departments to improve service delivery across the City. We’re a cross-functional team with a mission to improve the user experience of existing digital services, better engage and communicate with our residents, and build new systems to improve how the City delivers services online. 

As a Senior Product Manager, you’ll set the direction of cashflow-related service interactions such as payment collection and grant distribution. You’ll create service delivery experiences that remain simple to use, secure, and sustainable as standards evolve. In partnership with a diverse set of stakeholders, you’ll define business goals and communicate long-term roadmaps. You will use your business and technology experience to assess risks and opportunities, and you’ll evaluate and decide on trade-off choices with your team. You will define the long-term success of your products, manage and coach less experienced team members, and promote a product innovation culture in the City of Boston.

Stakeholder Management:

• Create enduring partnerships with department leaders to keep product decisions aligned with evolving operational goals and objectives over the long term.
• Act as a product evangelist to build awareness and understanding.
• Develop value-creating partnerships with vendors and other parties, including our banking partners.
• Communicate technical information among non-technical audiences.

Strategic Planning:

• Communicate experience improvement intentions through twelve to twenty-four (12-24) month strategic roadmaps that convey how value will be delivered, building internal and external buy-in along the way.
• Collaborate with Department of Innovation and Technology executive leadership to align product strategy priorities and annual budgets for the next one to two (1-2) years.
• Drive procurement initiatives and contractual agreements.
• Explore commercially available solutions and guide the trade-off choices that are associated with build vs. buy solution decisions.
• Build operational support into product planning so that service experiences reliably perform as expected, with well-understood support procedures in place.
• Develop organization-wide business practices so that processes are clear and optimized for great customer experience and the wisest use of funds.

Delivery:

• Lead a cross-functional team of product experts to deliver value to end users.
• Maintain trusted partnerships with vendors and act as the primary business relationship owner. Remain aware of current and future vendor capabilities and promote the adoption of high-value features. Advocate for City needs to influence vendors’ development priorities.
• Design, plan, and execute ongoing system updates and enhancements. Lead larger-scale platform implementations as standards evolve.
• Ensure that epics, user stories, and other requirement records fully express user needs and desired outcomes and that they align with strategic roadmaps.
• Work with the team to set and meet quality standards for any product you build.
• Ensure that projects are resourced with the right combination of skills so that we deliver intended outcomes.
• Drive product launches, including working with communications, executives, and other team members.
• Develop training and support programs to ensure consistent operations.
• Develop and promote documentation so that users have ready answers to their questions.
• Identify and proactively monitor and address product and project risks.
• Define and track key product metrics; use metric targets to inform product evolution.

User Experience:

• Ensure that our technology decisions are informed by end users and that user research, data, and user feedback are gathered in order to make roadmap and product priority choices.
• Ensure a consistent, dignified, and ideally delightful end-to-end user experience across products and channels. 

Operations:

• Remain current with evolving security standards (e.g., PCI DSS) and ensure ongoing compliance with cybersecurity programs.
• Develop and build awareness of vendor issue management and escalation procedures.
• Design onboarding procedures so that departments and programs can easily integrate technology into their service delivery experiences.
• Collaborate with other teams to ensure that solutions are consistent with standards and that they evolve with changing business needs, security and performance requirements, and other organizational needs.
• Maintain a sufficient supply of hardware and software assets and procure additional resources (e.g., software, hardware, or services) as needed.

Management:

• May supervise and coach other staff members.
• May oversee contracts and projects with contractors and vendors.
• Perform related work as required.

• At least five (5) years of full-time, or equivalent part-time, professional experience as a Product Manager within a cross-functional technology team or similar experience in a related role.
• Hands-on experience developing, implementing, or supporting payment cycle management solutions.
• Experience working with PCI DSS or equivalent payment security standards.
• Strategic thinking: ability to define and articulate a multi-year product vision and strategy.
• Leadership experience among cross-functional teams that work collaboratively to build new capabilities.
• Experience delivering enterprise technology capabilities within large organizations and ensuring the successful adoption of those capabilities into ongoing operations.
• Organizational skills sufficient to manage a dynamic portfolio of work that spans teams, customers, cultures, and technologies.
• Written and verbal communication skills that generate trust and convey complex technical ideas effectively among diverse audiences, particularly at executive levels.
• History of successful partnerships that delivered business value across functional boundaries.
• Strong bias towards action; ability to step up into team gaps and ambiguous situations to structure the team’s action plan.
• Proficiency with standard office productivity applications (e.g., Google Workspace, Microsoft Office), service management platforms (e.g., ServiceNow), and visual communication and ideation tools (e.g., Miro, Visio).
• Ability to exercise sound judgment and focus on details as required by the job.

Preferred

• A bachelor’s degree in engineering, finance, accounting, or a related field.
• One (1) or more years of experience directly managing employees in an office environment.

BOSTON RESIDENCY REQUIRED - You must live within Boston city limits at the start of your employment.

Terms:

Union/Salary Plan/Grade: SENA/MM1-10

Hours per week : 35