Product Manager, Platform

Description

 Description

Are you a planner and a doer? Does the opportunity to work with highly motivated technical people, to investigate issues, specify resolutions, and implement solutions to help customers excite you? Then don’t hesitate to apply for Proquest’s Product Manager role.

As a Product Manager you will be responsible for gathering, developing, documenting and supporting the delivery of platform-related business requirements in the area of assigned responsibility. As part of a technical team you will investigate, specify and implement solutions while serving as the product owner within a scrum team.  Your responsibility will include defining and prioritizing the work of the scrum team as well as working closely with Training and Technical Support groups in the rollout and ongoing support of your products.  You will also have frequent customer contact in both the definition of products and features, as well as providing Tier 2 support to customer-facing groups to ensure your products solve the customer’s problems..

Some of what you'll be doing:

PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT

• Innovator: Originate innovative solutions for platform capabilities that meet existing and future market needs, increase the value of current databases or introduce new product/service opportunities
• Analyzer: Analyze business objectives and user and customer needs and develop detailed business requirements and other documentation to drive database and platform development processes
• Leader: Provide business leadership and direction to multi-functional implementation teams, user experience designers, content editors and software developers and project managers, to ensure business objectives are effectively realized
• Owner/Operator: Serve as “component owner” for one or more feature areas of the platform, ensuring consistency of functionality and driving improvements/new functionality to the market.  Monitors their area and escalates issues as appropriate

MARKET FOCUS
• Researcher: Research and analyze markets to understand current platform and customer needs and to identify potential new opportunities
• Opportunity Maven: Monitor customer and user feedback, market and technology trends and competitor activity to identify opportunities for platform enrichment
• Jack-of-all trades: Work closely with internal publishing, marketing and sales staff to develop an understanding of product, sales and business objectives
What you'll need to be successful:
• Bachelor’s Degree, 2 years in a product management, project management or business analyst role and/or equivalent experience
• 5 years industry experience in relevant roles in publishing, information services or information technology businesses, or closely related fields and Bachelor’s degree and/or equivalent combination of education
• Experience working with end-users, customers, marketing, product management and software developers
• Demonstrable knowledge of web-based technologies
• Experience with software product development processes, particularly Agile/Scrum
• Ability to serve as product owner in a scrum team, properly prioritizing work, guiding the team and escalating issues when committed work is at risk
• Proven ability to provide business direction and leadership to cross-functional implementation teams and the drive and resilience to ensure those teams succeed
• Demonstrably strong analytical skills and broad business grounding that enable the crafting of detailed and effective business requirements
• Extensive knowledge of public and academic libraries, the library market or library science, and familiarity with online searching, reference, and information access tools
• Very strong verbal and written communication and presentation skills
• Strong self-motivation, demonstrably able to work independently and thrive in a fast-paced, multi-tasking environment while maintaining excellent working relationships with people in a wide variety of functional areas

Bonus Points!

• Strong familiarity with existing ProQuest products and product architecture
• Familiarity with relevant industry organizations and services including ALA, NISO, CrossRef, DOAJ, etc.
• Familiarity with relevant library systems, technologies, and standards, e.g. OPACs, Link Resolvers, COUNTER, OpenURL, Z39.50, SRW/U, DOI, OAI, Shibboleth, etc.
• Understanding of ProQuest platform and other systems
• Knowledge of accessibility standards
• Proven experience in troubleshooting and resolving technical issues

Here’s what you want to know about the Ann Arbor office

Fantastic people:  Where smart is the norm and unique is welcome
Fun location: Restaurants all around, within walking distance to Briarwood Mall, and approximately 3 miles from Downtown Ann Arbor.
Great benefits:   On-site events, flexible scheduling and wellness programs, plus Bike to work benefits.
Awesome office environment:  Nice office, jeans are the norm and unlimited complimentary coffee and tea for the caffeine craved
Amazing company:  Annual compensation reviews, generous bonuses, along with being voted as one of the Top Places to Work by Detroit Free Press, three years in a row!

 
                                                                   About ProQuest
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. We provide seamless access to and navigation of more than 125 billion digital pages of the world's scholarship, delivering it to the desktop and into the workflow of serious researchers in multiple fields, from arts, literature, and social science to general reference, business, science, technology, and medicine. The company is currently rolling out the all-new ProQuest® platform, which moves beyond navigation to empower researchers to use, create, and share content—accelerating research productivity.

If this position isn’t quite your fit, check out our other positions posted on our “Career” page under About Us.  ProQuest’s corporate office is located in Ann Arbor, MI. www.Proquest.com