Customer Strategy Manager

Compass Education; City of Melbourne; Hybrid; AUD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work environment

PD budget

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Parental leave program

Team events & in-office perks

Employee Referral Program

Inclusive culture

Job summary

Compass Education is seeking a commercially minded product thinker who blends strategy and design to shape new school solutions. You will explore opportunities, run customer discovery and prototype ideas for executive review.

You’ll work across multiple squads to translate needs into testable concepts, using Figma and AI-assisted design tools, while grounding proposals in business cases and pricing considerations.

Qualifications

• 3 to 6 years across product strategy and design with SaaS or EdTech exposure.
• Proven design taste and ability to sketch viable solutions.
• Experience building a business case or commercial rationale.

Responsibilities

• Identify opportunities across the product portfolio to add value for schools.
• Run structured discovery with customers to understand real needs.
• Explore commercial options (build, partner, buy) with business cases.
• Produce prototypes with Figma and AI tools to test with customers.
• Handover concepts to product teams with a clear brief and advisory support.

Skills

Product strategy

Product design

SaaS/EdTech awareness

Commercial modelling

Tools

Figma

AI design tools

Job description

Come shape the future of education with us.

At Compass, we're on a mission to transform the school day for everyone - from staff and students to families and administrators. We build smart, seamless technology that empowers schools to focus on what really matters: learning, growing and thriving.

That mission has fueled our growth into a global scale-up, now supporting 5,000+ schools across three countries, backed by a team of 300+ people. Our all-in-one school management platform is redefining how education communities connect, communicate and operate.

About The Role

This is a new kind of role at Compass, sitting at the intersection of strategy, product management and design. You'll float across our product teams to identify, size and shape new opportunities, then bring them to life through thoughtful discovery and prototyping before collaborating with our squads to build.

This is not a product manager role, and not a traditional UX or UI design role. It calls for a commercially minded product thinker with genuine design taste - someone who can spot a good opportunity, understand what schools actually need, and sketch out what a great solution could look like.

What You'll Do

• Identify opportunities across our product portfolio to build more value for schools and educators
• Run structured discovery with customers to understand their real needs and priorities
• Explore how new ideas could work commercially, including build, partner or buy options - you'll need to be comfortable with numbers and creating business cases to sell commercially viable ideas to Executives
• Produce thoughtful prototypes, using tools like Figma and AI-assisted design tools, to bring ideas to life and test them with customers
• Handover new concepts to the relevant product teams with a clear brief, then stay involved in an advisory capacity through early build

You will bring

• 3 to 6 years of experience across product strategy, product design or a related field, ideally with some SaaS or EdTech exposure
• A track record or portfolio that demonstrates real design taste and judgement, alongside financial modelling and commercial
• Experience building a business case or commercial rationale for a new product or feature
• Working fluency in Figma and AI-assisted design tools, used thoughtfully rather than as a shortcut
• Strong written and verbal communication, comfortable presenting ideas to senior stakeholders
• Comfort working across multiple teams without a fixed home base

What Good Looks Like

• You know the difference between good and great UX - not just by instinct, but can explain why one approach works better than another
• You run structured customer discovery, spending real time with customers to understand their needs, wants and desires, then translate these into product prototypes
• You prototype thoughtfully. Typing a brief into an AI tool and taking the first output isn't the bar - you frame the problem properly, build on existing patterns and iterate with judgement
• You balance craft with commercial thinking - design taste matters, but so does understanding what will actually work as a business, including pricing decisions and commercial models, especially across AI products
• You're fast and adaptable, embracing failure as a learning opportunity and taking a disciplined approach to experimentation, translating insights into actionable recommendations quickly

Benefits

Why Join Compass

• A hybrid working environment, based in our Melbourne or Sydney office hubs
• Learning and development opportunities, including a dedicated PD budget
• 24/7 access to our Employee Assistance Program (EAP), including face-to-face, phone and live chat support
• A parental leave program for both primary and secondary carers
• Regular team events, social budgets and in-office perks help you stay connected, from team lunches to end-of-week socials
• Employee Referral Program
• A supportive, inclusive culture where your voice is valued and heard

Compass is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We embrace and celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Prior to commencing employment, you'll need:

• A valid Employee Working With Children Check
• A satisfactory National Police Check
• Verification of unrestricted work rights in Australia (e.g. citizenship, passport or birth certificate)