Product Development Manager

Chop Dawg; United States; On-site; USD 86,000 - 106,000; Full time

Job summary

A custom app development agency in the United States is seeking a Head of Partner Solutions to connect sales and product delivery. This role emphasizes relationship building with partners and ensuring project clarity from design to development. The ideal candidate will have experience in app development, strong project management skills, and a customer-first mindset. This position offers an opportunity to influence partner experiences extensively.

Qualifications

• Experience with app development agencies that build custom mobile and web applications.
• Experience carrying projects from discovery through design and into development.
• Comfortable discussing technical concepts with engineering and design teams.

Responsibilities

• Act as the product expert in sales and pre-sales conversations.
• Lead technical discovery and solution definition.
• Manage multiple partner projects simultaneously.

Skills

Strong product thinking

Project management skills

Client-facing experience

Agile development workflows

Cross-cultural communication

Tools

Zoom

Jira

Confluence

Slack

Job description

Compensation: starting $8,000/month USD per month, paid on a bi-weekly schedule, with opportunity to start earning significant additional compensation through sales commissions and expanded responsibilities once you start contributing to helping us close work.

Reports To: CTO/COO and CEO

Availability: Must have flexibility around standard U.S. business hours to accommodate coordination with our U.S.-based partners, our design team in Brazil, and our development teams in Pakistan and India.

About Chop Dawg

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Chop Dawg builds custom mobile apps, web platforms, and AI products for partners worldwide. We've launched over 500 apps with a 92% partner retention rate, working with everyone from first-time founders to Fortune 500 companies, including NASA, The White House, Jefferson Health, Six Flags, Wawa, Hilton, the NFL, and the U.S. Navy. Our teams span across the United States, Brazil, and Pakistan.

We don't call our clients "clients." We call them partners, because that's the relationship we build. We're not a vendor you hire and check in with at the end. We're in it with you from day one, and this role is at the center of making that promise real.

The Role

As Head of Partner Solutions, you'll be the single most important thread connecting everything we do, from the final sales conversation to a finished product in our partners' hands. You'll own product clarity across the entire pre-build lifecycle, helping close deals, define solutions, carry context cleanly into design, and guide the transition into development.

You’ll need to deeply understand each partner's vision, offer creative and strategic advice to make their products better, and navigate the realities of scope, timelines, and contractual commitments without ever losing sight of the experience we deliver. You'll work with partners ranging from early-stage startups to established enterprises across a wide range of industries, and no two projects will look the same.

What a Typical Engagement Looks Like

You join the final stages of the sales process to help define the solution and close the deal. Once the partner signs, you lead the kickoff and own the relationship from that point forward. You run discovery, define the product direction, and work closely with our design team to translate that into user personas, site maps, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes. Throughout the design phase, you're meeting with the partner weekly, keeping scope aligned, managing expectations, and making sure the product is getting better at every step. When design wraps, you lead the handoff to our programming team, ensuring everything is audited, signed off, and clearly documented before development begins. You stay available to support the dev and QA teams with context and partner insights as the product gets built.

What You’ll Do

• Act as the product expert in sales and pre-sales conversations
• Lead technical discovery, solution definition, and product positioning
• Translate partner needs into clear product direction and solution recommendations
• Lead demos, solution walkthroughs, and discovery calls throughout the design process
• Partner with sales to unblock deals and improve close rates

Partner Relationships & Project Leadership

• Own the full lifecycle from the end of sales to design to development handoff, maintaining complete context throughout
• Manage multiple partner projects simultaneously, communicating and organizing across teams through Slack, Jira, and Confluence
• Meet with partners and internal teams at minimum weekly via Zoom, ensuring alignment on vision, scope, and progress
• Navigate partner relationships with care, balancing their goals and ambitions with scope of work boundaries, quality expectations, and financial and contractual commitments
• Provide creative input and strategic advice that helps partners build better products, not just the products they initially described
• Treat every interaction as a reflection of Chop Dawg’s reputation, because how we work with our partners matters as much as what we deliver

Design Enablement & Development Transition

• Partner with designers to turn requirements into clear, validated design direction
• Participate in design reviews to ensure solutions stay aligned with the original vision and scope
• Lead the transition from design into development, ensuring proper sign-off and design audits before programming begins
• Support programming and QA teams with knowledge, context, and insights as needed during development
• Feed partner insights back into product strategy and roadmap decisions
• Create and maintain enablement materials including decks, flows, specs, user personas, site maps, wireframes, high fidelities, product flows, design components and resource libraries, and non-functional prototyping

What We’re Looking For

Required

• Experience working at or with app development agencies that build custom mobile and web applications
• Strong product thinking with a customer-first mindset and direct client-facing experience leading conversations, demos, and design discussions
• Experience carrying projects from discovery through design and into development, including managing the design-to-development handoff process (design systems, annotation, dev-ready specs)
• Familiarity with agile or sprint-based development workflows
• Experience coordinating distributed team resources across multiple time zones, including comfort with cross-cultural communication and navigating language and formatting differences
• Understanding of QA processes and user acceptance testing (UAT)
• Comfortable discussing technical concepts with engineering and design teams, understanding platform considerations for mobile and web apps, and translating technical constraints into language partners can understand
• Strong project management skills with proficiency in Zoom, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, and Slack
• Clear communicator who is organized, disciplined with multiple competing priorities, and genuinely invested in partner success

Nice to Have

• Previous experience with proposal writing or scope of work (SOW) creation
• Prior experience working directly with teams based in Pakistan, India, and/or Brazil
• Background in product strategy, roadmap planning, and sales
• Proficiency with Figma or similar design tools

Why Chop Dawg

We don't chase volume. We invest in relationships. That's how we've maintained a 92% partner retention rate and built a portfolio that spans startups, government agencies, and some of the most recognized brands in the world. In this role, you won't be a cog in a machine. You'll be one of the most important people in the room, working directly with our leadership team and shaping how every partner experiences Chop Dawg from their very first conversation as a signed partner to ultimately their launched product.

If you're someone who takes pride in being the person that holds everything together and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks, we'd love to talk.

How to Apply

Apply directly through this posting. Tell us about your experience, the types of projects and teams you've managed, and what drew you to this role.

Chop Dawg is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.