Contract Product Manager (Evergreen)

Blue State; Oakland (CA); Hybrid; USD 82,656 - 123,984; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Blue State in Oakland seeks a Product Manager to shape its digital product suite for nonprofit clients. You’ll collaborate with the Tech, Strategy, Design, and Analytics teams to define requirements, write acceptance criteria, and plan sprints for a hybrid in-office role in the US.

You’ll conduct user research, create personas, and prioritize features, balancing scope and budget while ensuring quality deliverables.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in product management for digital platforms.
• Experience with CMS-driven websites (WordPress) and evaluating feasibility of designs.
• Familiarity with marketing platforms including CRMs and data personalization technologies.
• Knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JS to discuss capabilities.
• Strong data-driven decision making using qualitative and quantitative data.
• Ability to translate insights into wireframes for design teams.

Responsibilities

• Assess clients’ digital platforms, identify goals, and communicate solutions that help clients achieve strategic objectives.
• Cultivate an understanding of users’ needs through interviews, analytics, and research; create personas and journeys.
• Conduct product research and lead feature ideation and prioritization sessions.
• Evaluate proposed features against scope; make recommendations when budget is tight.
• Write and maintain functional requirements and acceptance criteria for features and flows.
• Be the client-facing expert on product functionality and questions from stakeholders.
• Develop testing and measurement plans in coordination with strategists and analysts.
• Manage agile product builds, overseeing sprint plans, standups, and backlogs using Jira.
• Manage stakeholder feedback and clarify defects for developers.
• Use AI to accelerate work, from requirements to prototypes.

Skills

Product management

User research

Agile

Stakeholder comms

Prioritization

Tools

WordPress

Jira

Analytics tools

Job description

If you came across this job via LinkedIn, please note that it is an “evergreen” role; LinkedIn does not differentiate, but we prefer to.

What to know

As a Product Manager at Blue State, you’ll work with leading nonprofits and progressive organizations to reimagine how they engage audiences through their digital product suite, which can include websites and marketing platforms. Working closely with our Tech, Strategy, Design, and Analytics teams, you’ll conduct user research, identify product requirements, help define content strategy, create sprint plans, write acceptance criteria, and test and iterate on deliverables for Blue State’s unique portfolio of clients.

The company

Blue State is a purpose-driven agency. We partner with leading causes, brands, and campaigns and create real change. From AARP and Doctors Without Borders to Amnesty International and Oxfam, we transform how brands and causes raise money, influence policy, build platforms, and grow communities of supporters. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State is an independent agency in the US and London.

The team

Blue State Digital is a purpose-driven creative and tech agency. We transform how brands and causes engage their most important people. From Google to UNICEF, from Obama to MIT, from Tate Modern to Ford Motor Company, Blue State Digital helps grow communities, build platforms, and transform organizations for the digital age. Led by the most creative and analytical minds from the political, nonprofit, and brand worlds, Blue State Digital is a part of WPP Digital and has more than 250 employees in six offices around the world.

A day in the life

• Assess clients’ digital platforms, identify goals, and communicate solutions that help clients achieve their strategic objectives.
• Cultivate an understanding of users’ needs and behaviors through interviews, analytics, and other forms of research. Create personas and user journeys, and represent users’ perspective in planning sessions.
• Conduct product research and lead feature ideation and prioritization sessions.
• Evaluate all proposed features against the product scope. Provide creative recommendations based on your technical expertise when features don’t fit in the budget. Make the tough calls when a sprint plan is over budget.
• Write and maintain functional requirements, ensuring that all functionality, user flows, and edge cases are understood by stakeholders. Documentation could range from lofi sketches to detailed acceptance criteria.
• Be the client-facing expert on product functionality, answering questions and solving problems.
• Develop testing and measurement plans in coordination with strategists and analysts.
• Manage agile product builds, overseeing sprint plans, standups, and backlogs. Use project management tools such as Jira to track progress and communicate status.
• Manage stakeholder feedback, ensuring that issues are reported and prioritized correctly. Use your tech skills to clarify defects for developers and augment bug reports with necessary context.
• Use AI to accelerate your work, whether that’s writing requirements, creating prototypes, or organizing inputs.

We approach in-office working with a hybrid model. On-site presence is welcome for US staff who are within commuting distance of the NY or DC office. Managers retain discretion to require in-person attendance for folks on their discipline or client teams as necessary, including for those whose roles require them to be in person.

The salary range for this position is $60-$90 per hour; compensation will be commensurate with experience.

Some things we’re looking for

• 3+ years of experience in a product management role or similar role, and experience with website projects.
• Experience with CMS-driven websites, such as those built on WordPress. You will not architect a WordPress site yourself, but you will vet designs and feature requirements for feasibility and judge an engineering team’s progress.
• Familiarity with and interest in marketing platforms, including CRMs, and data and personalization technology used by organizations to engage and mobilize their supporters.
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and JS. You will not need to write any code, but you will need to speak to the capabilities of common web technologies.
• Experienced with using qualitative and quantitative data to make product decisions
• Ability to use wireframes to communicate recommendations to design teams
• Cognizance of the overall AI landscape and the ability to evaluate AI outputs critically.
• Willingness to wear multiple hats and get into the weeds across product needs including UX design, content strategy, and user research.
• Excellent communication skills. Ability to interact with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
• Strong collaborator and relationship builder. Colleagues know they can come to you for help working through issues or opportunities.
• Empathy, positivity, respect, and the ability to be a role model at Blue State.

At Blue State, diversity is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. We encourage those from underrepresented communities — women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, those with disabilities, and people at all the intersections in between — to apply. Even if you don’t think your current skill set checks every box below, but this role seems to align with your strengths and interests, we want to hear from you.

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