Senior Associate, Product Operations- Customer Engagement

athenahealth; Belfast (ME); Hybrid; USD 83,000 - 141,000; Full time

Job summary

athenahealth is seeking a Senior Associate, Product Operations – Customer Engagement to help define and evolve the Customer Engagement function within product lifecycle governance. This hybrid Belfast, ME role collaborates in-office with teams to drive operational excellence.

This role applies governance, AI-enabled workflows, and analytics to improve how product teams engage with customers, manage scenarios, and surface insights that guide strategy and improvements across the lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 5+ years of professional experience, including 1–2 years in customer engagement, product operations, or product management.
• Healthcare and product management experience; interoperability, EHR, or B2B SaaS preferred.
• Demonstrated fluency with AI and automation tools, including judgment on where they help.
• Strong governance instincts and ability to build scalable systems and monitor adherence.
• Proven ability to influence stakeholders without direct authority.
• Strong analytical and communication skills; able to make data actionable.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

Responsibilities

• Own and maintain the rules, standards, and SOPs that govern customer engagement across the product lifecycle.
• Monitor adherence to engagement standards across product owners and cross-functional partners.
• Coach product owners on customer engagement best practices and accountability.
• Partner with the Product Operations delivery team to ensure consistent and excellent customer engagement execution.
• Identify patterns and surface insights that drive systemic improvements across the function.
• Design and document exception-handling protocols to reduce ambiguity in edge cases.
• Partner with Product Owners, Customer Success Managers, and stakeholders to resolve complex scenarios with minimal disruption.
• Translate complex customer and stakeholder needs into clear process guidance and operational action.
• Support readiness and rollout of AI-powered product features with validation and risk assessment.

Skills

Stakeholder influence

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Product operations knowledge

AI fluency

Ambiguity tolerance

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

AI tools knowledge

Data analytics tools

Job description

Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Position Summary

athenahealth is seeking a Senior Associate, Product Operations – Customer Engagement to help define and evolve the Customer Engagement function as Product Operations continues to mature. This role sits at the intersection of process governance, customer engagement strategy, and operational excellence, supporting how information flows between product teams, internal partners, and customers throughout the product lifecycle.

This is a hybrid role based in Belfast, ME, with regular in-office collaboration.

About The Team

The Customer Engagement team acts as the infrastructure layer between athenahealth’s R&D organization and the outside world. The team builds and governs the processes, standards, and operational “pipes” that support customer engagement at critical stages of the product lifecycle, with a growing emphasis on AI-enabled workflows, governance, and continuous improvement.

Core Responsibilities

• Process governance and infrastructure
  • Own and maintain the rules, standards, and SOPs that govern customer engagement across the product lifecycle.
  • Monitor adherence to engagement standards across product owners and cross‑functional partners.
  • Coach product owners on customer engagement best practices and accountability.
  • Partner with the Product Operations delivery team to ensure consistent and excellent customer engagement execution.
  • Identify patterns and surface insights that drive systemic improvements across the function.
  • Help extend the governance model beyond alpha and beta into releases, migrations, roadmap communication, service descriptions, and commercialization.
• Exception handling and complex scenario management
  • Serve as the escalation point for engagement scenarios outside the standard path.
  • Apply judgment to determine when coaching, intervention, or escalation is needed.
  • Design and document exception‑handling protocols to reduce ambiguity and improve future handling of edge cases.
  • Partner with Product Owners, Customer Success Managers, and cross‑functional stakeholders to resolve complex scenarios with minimal disruption.
  • Translate complex customer and stakeholder needs into clear process guidance and operational action.
• AI governance, tooling, and automation
  • Champion AI best practices within the Customer Engagement function.
  • Establish standards for how AI tools are used in customer identification, recruitment, communication, and engagement analysis.
  • Identify automation and AI‑driven opportunities to reduce manual effort and improve consistency.
  • Coach partners on responsible and effective AI use, including when human judgment must lead.
  • Support readiness and release of AI‑powered product features by applying best practices for validation, risk assessment, and customer enablement.
  • Stay current on the AI landscape and bring forward‑looking ideas into Product Operations.
• Data‑driven decision‑making and insights
  • Use data and analytics to monitor engagement health, identify risks, and surface strategic insights.
  • Deliver executive‑level reporting on engagement metrics, participation trends, and program outcomes.
  • Provide recommendations that shape customer engagement decisions and operating models.
  • Partner with analytics and tooling teams to improve data infrastructure for customer pool management, participation tracking, and engagement analysis.

Success in the First Year

• Product owners are executing standard customer engagement work independently with less dependency on Customer Engagement.
• Exception handling protocols are documented and reduce resolution time for complex scenarios.
• The role is recognized as a governance and process leadership function that informs strategy.
• AI best practices are modeled and adopted broadly across the function.
• Reporting shifts from activity metrics to meaningful business and customer impact.
• At least one cross‑functional process improvement is delivered.
• The governance model begins expanding into at least one area beyond alpha and beta.

Required Background

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 5+ years of professional experience, including 1–2 years in customer engagement, product operations, product management, or a closely related field.
• Healthcare and product management‑related experience required; interoperability, EHR, or B2B SaaS experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated fluency with AI and automation tools, including clear judgment on where they help and where they do not.
• Strong process governance instincts, including the ability to build scalable systems and monitor adherence.
• Proven ability to influence stakeholders horizontally and vertically without direct authority.
• Strong analytical and communication skills, with the ability to make complex data actionable.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, especially with customers and executives.
• Ability to translate between technical and non‑technical audiences preferred.

Why This Role Matters

This role is central to making Customer Engagement more scalable, consistent, and strategically useful. It combines governance, exception management, AI fluency, and analytics to improve how product teams engage with customers and how the organization learns from those interactions.

Expected Compensation

$83,000 - $141,000

The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job‑related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long‑term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.

About Athenahealth

In an industry that becomes more complex by the day, we stand for simplicity. We offer IT solutions and expert services that eliminate the daily hurdles preventing healthcare providers from focusing entirely on their patients — powered by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high‑quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Our vision:

Our talented employees — or athenistas, as we call ourselves — spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our vision. We are a diverse group of dreamers and do‑ers with unique knowledge, expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives. We unite as mission‑driven problem‑solvers with a deep desire to achieve our vision and make our time here count. Our award‑winning culture is built around shared values of inclusiveness, accountability, and support.

Our company culture:

Our vision of accessible, high‑quality, and sustainable healthcare for all requires addressing the inequities that stand in the way. That's one reason we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our business, from attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce to maintaining an inclusive environment for athenistas, our partners, customers and the communities where we work and serve.

Our DEI commitment:

Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative workspaces — some offices even welcome dogs.

What We Can Do For You

We also encourage a better work‑life balance for athenistas with our flexibility. While we know in‑office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full‑time. With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.

In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons. We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued.

Learn more about our culture and benefits here: athenahealth.com/careers

https://www.athenahealth.com/careers/equal‑opportunity