Remote Product Discovery Lead

NelNET; Eau Claire (WI); Remote; USD 140,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

HSA/FSA

Earned time off

401K / student loan repayment

Life insurance

AD&D insurance

Employee assistance program

Employee stock purchase program

Tuition reimbursement

Performance-based incentive pay

Short- and long-term disability

Wellness program

Job summary

Nelnet is seeking a Product Discovery Manager to lead customer and market discovery, turning ambiguity into focused research questions and actionable recommendations. You will partner with product, design, technology, and business stakeholders to ground decisions in customer evidence and prototype testing.

You will establish scalable discovery practices, synthesize insights into opportunities and requirements, and communicate findings to influence product strategy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Sociology, Marketing, Research, Product Management, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• 5+ years of experience in product discovery, user research, product management, product design, customer research, innovation, or a related discipline.
• Experience independently planning and conducting customer or user discovery and translating findings into actionable recommendations.
• Experience evaluating ambiguous opportunities and using evidence to influence product or business decisions.
• Experience collaborating across product, design, technology, commercial, or business functions.

Responsibilities

• Lead product and customer discovery activities to understand customer needs, behaviors, workflows, pain points, and unmet opportunities.
• Define research questions, hypotheses, target audiences, and evidence criteria needed to evaluate product and business opportunities.
• Recruit and engage customers, users, buyers, subject-matter experts, and other relevant participants to gather actionable insights.
• Conduct interviews, workflow observations, concept testing, and other qualitative or quantitative research activities appropriate to the business question.
• Synthesize customer and market evidence into clear themes, Jobs to Be Done, opportunity areas, product requirements, and recommendations.
• Develop and test prototypes, concepts, workflows, and other representations of potential solutions to accelerate learning and reduce product risk.
• Evaluate discovery findings and recommend whether opportunities should advance, change direction, or be discontinued based on available evidence.
• Partner with product, design, technology, commercial, and business stakeholders to translate insights into product strategy and development priorities.
• Establish scalable discovery practices, research repositories, templates, tools, and documentation that improve the quality and speed of future discovery work.
• Communicate findings and recommendations clearly to stakeholders, using evidence and business context to influence decisions.

Job description

Nelnet is seeking a Product Discovery Manager to lead customer and market discovery, turning ambiguity into focused research questions and actionable recommendations. You will partner with product, design, technology, and business stakeholders to ground decisions in customer evidence and prototype testing.

You will establish scalable discovery practices, synthesize insights into opportunities and requirements, and communicate findings to influence product strategy.