Senior Product Manager

^{The position is anticipated to be short-term, and not expected to exceed 12 months. Please note that there is no guaranteed duration of the position, and your employment will be at will and for no fixed duration. As such, it can be terminated by you or the organization at any time, with or without notice or cause, for any reason not otherwise prohibited by law.}

*This position is fully remote/home based. Applications will be accepted from candidates based in the following US states: FL,GA, MA, MD, NY, PA, VA, VT.

Role Summary

PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.

As a Senior Product Manager at PLOS, you’ll have strategic and tactical oversight of a broad solution space within the organization.   You will lead and manage the iterative design, development, and maintenance of PLOS digital products and services. Working closely with your product team and colleagues across the organization, you will ensure a clear understanding of:

• The problems we are trying to solve
• Why our users will use our solution
• How the solution benefits PLOS
• How the solution integrates with the overall PLOS platform
• How we will measure and evaluate the success or failure of the work

Your decisions will be data-informed and outcome-centered, guided by performance metrics, user insights, and market intelligence. You will work collaboratively with software engineers, designers, and subject matter experts to discover solutions and drive outcomes. The results of your work will have a material impact on our collective success, helping to fulfill our business objectives, improve our operations, and further our mission.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• This is an individual contributor role

Responsibilities

Product Strategy

• Define and champion the vision for the product and how it fits into the overall architecture and user experience
• Serving as the key spokesperson for your products, clearly and convincingly communicate the aims of the product internally and externally.
• Measure and optimize performance of products within your area of ownership
• Take initiative in identifying issues; plan and implement solutions with innovative thinking.
• Communicate solution strategies and plans within the organization; enable and contribute to external communications.

Product Development

• Conduct and/or commission research to understand current user needs and behavior
• Formulate and test product hypotheses using qualitative and quantitative metrics
• Ensure the team understands the problems to be solved and facilitate team collaboration to devise desirable and feasible solutions. 
• Combine your knowledge of technology and design heuristics with a deep understanding of our users’ wants and needs to iteratively develop digital products for the benefit of our users.

Product Support

• Lead internal trainings, presentations, and demos of solutions within your area of ownership
• Address escalations and field questions from staff. 
• Establish product health benchmarks and measure ongoing performance to optimize user experience through iterative design and development. 

Knowledge and Skills

• Solid understanding of website development best practices including user research, interface design, analytics, information architecture, domain driven design and software development and deployment.
• Ability to exercise sound judgment about important business issues for reporting and escalation.
• Deep understanding of product development methodologies, innovation frameworks and

Qualifications

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Passionate about the ability of qualitative and quantitative data to improve user experience
• Solid understanding of web accessibility standards and designing inclusive digital products. Experience with products within the scholarly publishing space preferred
• Ability to foster an experimental outcome-based culture that values learning and continuous improvement and empowers the teams to take ownership and responsibility themselves.
• Success working with fully-remote teams across multiple time zones
• Experience with products within the scholarly publishing space preferred

 Physical Requirements and Work Environment

• Prolonged periods stationary at a desk and working on a computer
• Some national and international travel will be required
• Some flexibility to work across time zones

The base salary range we’ve established for this position is $130,000 - $150,000. PLOS also offers a comprehensive benefits package that will be shared with candidates in the interview process.

The Organization:

PLOS is a non-profit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. PLOS journals propelled the movement for OA alternatives to subscription journals. We established the first multi-disciplinary publication inclusive of all excellent research regardless of novelty or impact and demonstrated the importance of open data availability. As we continue to lead the way in making research content more open, we need to make it a system that's open for everyone. We are intentionally spreading our roots deeper, globally. 

We believe in pushing the boundaries of 'Open' to create a more equitable system of scientific knowledge and understanding—it’s core to who we are, inside and out. Beyond accepting distinct perspectives, we seek and support divergent backgrounds among our staff because we know differences strengthen our teams, our work, and our communities. We’re ever-evolving in our journey for representation and equity, and strongly encourage applicants of diverse identities to apply: you’ll find a group of critical thinkers eager to challenge the status quo and learn with you as we continue breaking barriers to open science.

To learn more about how PLOS protects your privacy, see our Employee Privacy Notice.