Principal Product Manager

ZipStaff Inc.; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

ZipStaff Inc. in Washington, DC, seeks a Principal Product Manager to own mission-critical rail operations products, including Incident Management, Service Recovery, and Disruption Operations.

You will define multi-year strategy, roadmaps, and success metrics; act as the primary liaison among rail operations, customer experience, technology, and executive leadership; and prioritize backlog by risk, impact, and regulatory alignment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of product management on complex, mission-critical enterprise solutions.
• Experience with incident management, service recovery, and service-continuity platforms.
• Proven work in Agile and SAFe, managing cross-team dependencies without direct authority.
• Advanced use of Jira Align, Confluence, Visio, Figma, and Microsoft Office.
• Strong executive presence, facilitation, and decision-making in ambiguous, high-stakes settings.
• Bachelor’s in Business, IT, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• Ability to work on-site in Washington, DC.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year product strategy, vision, roadmap, and success metrics for incident management and service-disruption capabilities.
• Act as the primary liaison among rail operations, customer experience, technology, and executive leadership.
• Prioritize investment and backlog by operational risk, customer impact, business value, and regulatory alignment.
• Work with Agile / SAFe teams across interdependent workstreams.
• Set product decision frameworks, manage dependencies, and stay aligned to safety, regulatory, and operational policy.
• Lead discovery with field staff and operational control centers; write requirements, acceptance criteria, and workflows.
• Use data, customer feedback, and performance metrics to improve product and operational resilience.
• Brief executives on strategy, progress, dependencies, risks, and ROI.

Skills

Incident management

Service recovery

Service continuity

Agile / SAFe

Executive stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, IT, Engineering, or equivalent

Tools

Jira Align

Confluence

Visio

Figma

Microsoft Office

Job description

Job Title: Principal Product Manager

Location: Washington, DC (On-site)

Employment Type: Contract (W2 through ZipStaff — No C2C or 1099)

About the Opportunity

ZipStaff is seeking a Principal Product Manager to own mission-critical products for a major passenger-rail / transportation organization in Washington, DC.

You will lead Rail Incident Management, Service Recovery, and Disruption Operations — strategy, roadmap, and value delivery across operations, technology, and executive stakeholders. This is a senior product seat in a high-stakes operational environment, not a backlog-grooming-only PM role.

What You’ll Do

• Define multi-year product strategy, vision, roadmap, and success metrics for incident management and service-disruption capabilities.
• Act as the primary liaison among rail operations, customer experience, technology, and executive leadership.
• Prioritize investment and backlog by operational risk, customer impact, business value, and regulatory alignment.

• Work with Agile / SAFe teams across interdependent workstreams.
• Set product decision frameworks, manage dependencies, and stay aligned to safety, regulatory, and operational policy.
• Lead discovery with field staff and operational control centers; write requirements, acceptance criteria, and workflows.
• Use data, customer feedback, and performance metrics to improve product and operational resilience.
• Brief executives on strategy, progress, dependencies, risks, and ROI.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of product management on complex, mission-critical enterprise solutions.
• Experience with incident management, service recovery, and service-continuity platforms.
• Proven work in Agile and SAFe, managing cross-team dependencies without direct authority.
• Advanced use of Jira Align, Confluence, Visio, Figma, and Microsoft Office.
• Strong executive presence, facilitation, and decision-making in ambiguous, high-stakes settings.
• Bachelor’s in Business, IT, Engineering, or equivalent experience
• Ability to work on-site in Washington, DC.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Preferred Qualifications

• Transportation, logistics, or operational-platform product experience.
• SAFe POPM, Pragmatic Institute, AIPMM, or equivalent.
• PMP.

About ZipStaff

ZipStaff partners with leading organizations to connect skilled product leaders with high-impact contract opportunities. We focus on quality matches and long-term success.