Lead Specialist, Product Management

Pearson; Salem (OR); On-site; USD 160,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson is seeking a Lead Specialist Product Manager in Salem, Oregon to drive AI-enabled product capabilities across multiple teams. You will define strategy, outcomes, and roadmaps for shared capabilities, coordinating with product design, tech leads, and program managers to deliver scalable, innovative solutions.

You will influence stakeholders, translate complex ideas into clear requirements, and stay ahead of industry trends and competition in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Proven track record as an individual contributor product manager leading complex initiatives.
• Systems-thinking and architectural fluency, with shared product capabilities.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and make informed tradeoffs.
• Experience driving cross-functional alignment across teams to deliver outcomes.
• Analytical and data-informed, translating insights into product direction.
• Experience with modern enterprise, AI, and cloud architectures including APIs.
• Built API-based services; API commercialization a plus.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with product designer and engineers to discover and deliver solutions.
• Define product strategy, outcomes, and roadmaps for shared capabilities.
• Translate customer needs into clear business requirements and specs.
• Monitor industry trends and competitive landscape to inform decisions.
• Influence teammates and stakeholders with data-driven arguments.

Skills

Product management

Systems thinking

Data-driven decisions

Cross-functional collaboration

API-based architectures

REST APIs

Excellent communication

Problem solving

Stakeholder management

Cloud platforms

Tools

AWS / GCP

Job description

Job Title

Lead Specialist, Product Manager

About Pearson

At Pearson, we are committed to helping people make progress in their lives through learning. We create innovative and accessible educational products and services that foster personal and professional growth. We are looking for a passionate and skilled expert individual contributor Product Manager (E) to join our team and drive the development of cutting-edge educational products.

About the Job

We embrace the SVPG Product Operating Model by empowering our product teams to solve hard problems – customer problems and business problems – in ways that our customers love yet work for our business. Our product teams are cross-functional, durable, and generally comprised of a product manager, product design, tech lead and a program manager (4-in-a-box model).

We staff our product teams with the skills necessary to come up with effective solutions that are valuable (our customers choose to buy or use), viable (the solution works within the many constraints of the business), usable (the user can figure out how to use) and feasible (our engineers have the skills and technology to implement).

While the product designer is accountable for ensuring the solution is usable, and the engineers are accountable for ensuring the solution is feasible, the product manager is accountable for ensuring the solution is both valuable and viable.

This means that the product manager must contribute to their product team a solid knowledge of the various constraints of the business such as from marketing, sales, support, finance, legal and privacy. The product manager must also contribute a deep knowledge of our users and customers, and data about how our customers engage with our products. Finally, the product manager is expected to track industry trends and the competitive landscape as they pertain to their product.

While each member of the product team may be accountable for a specific risk, we look for product managers that understand that consistent innovation is the result of each member of the product team contributing their passion and their ideas. The product manager must collaborate closely with their product designer and engineers to discover effective solutions and then work together to deliver those solutions to market.

While we empower our product teams to figure out the best solutions to the problems that need to be solved, we also hold those teams accountable for the results. Shipping is necessary, but not sufficient. We look for product managers that are not afraid of signing up for results, even when this means they have to work through others to achieve the necessary results.

In this role, the Lead Specialist Product Manager will focus on new AI product capabilities that are leveraged by multiple product teams across Pearson. This includes defining product strategy, outcomes, and roadmaps for shared capabilities that enable scalability, performance, and innovation across a complex product ecosystem.

This job, as with the other roles on the product team, is an individual contributor role. You will need to be able to influence your teammates, as well as colleagues, stakeholders, and key executives, through your use of data and logic with strong communication skills translating complex concepts in easy-to-understand ways.

Necessary Qualifications

• Proven track record as an individual contributor product manager leading the execution of critical, technically complex product initiatives from strategy through release with measurable business outcomes.
• Demonstrated systems-thinking and architectural fluency, with experience shaping shared product capabilities or frameworks in close partnership with architects, engineers, and functional leads.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, make informed tradeoffs, and escape critical risks when appropriate.
• Demonstrated success driving cross-functional alignment, marshaling resources across teams to overcome obstacles, optimize the delivery of coherent, impactful outcomes.
• Highly analytical and data-informed, with experience translating customer insights, usage data, and performance signals into clear product direction and prioritization.
• Proven ability to solve complex problems with many constraints, articulating recommendations through well-structured, written narratives grounded in data and sound judgment.
• Experience working with modern enterprise, AI, and cloud-based architectures, including API-driven systems and integration patterns (e.g., REST APIs, event-driven or service-to-service models).
• Has built API-based services for both internal and external customers; successful API commercialization a plus.
• Exceptional communication skills, including the ability to condense complex technical concepts into clear, non-technical language and eliminate ambiguity for diverse stakeholder audiences.
• Ability to translate customer and business needs into clearly documented business requirements translated into functional solutions.
• Consistency in producing features that align with original requirements and a reduction in post-release corrections or escalations.

Compensation at Pearson is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific location. As required by the California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York State, New York City, Vermont, Washington State, and Washington DC laws, the pay range for this position is as follows:

The minimum full-time salary range is between $160,000 - 180,000.

This position is eligible to participate in an annual incentive program, and information on benefits offered is here.

Who we are

At Pearson, our purpose is simple: to help people realize the life they imagine through learning. We believe that every learning opportunity is a chance for a personal breakthrough. We are the world’s lifelong learning company. For us, learning isn’t just what we do. It’s who we are. To learn more: We are Pearson.

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer and a member of E-Verify. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit and business need. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status or any other group protected by law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

If you are an individual with a disability and you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our career site as a result of your disability, you may request reasonable accommodations by emailing [e-mail].