Product Manager

Position Overview

(Technical & Cross-Functional)

We are seeking an Academy Operations & Product Delivery Manager to own the day-to-day operational execution of Academy initiatives while enabling scalable product delivery across technology, content, and engagement workstreams. This role is the connective tissue between Product, Engineering, Operations, Marketing, and external development partners -- ensuring that strategic intent translates into consistent, high-quality execution within existing resource constraints.

What This Role Actually Does

This is a hybrid role designed to address the full scope of Academy operations while building toward more strategic product-ops capabilities over time. In practice, the day-to-day breaks down roughly as follows:

1. Academy Operations & Communications

• Own day-to-day Academy operations, including communications, content coordination, and stakeholder engagement cadences.
• Manage and coordinate VA (offshore concierge team) resources and operational support workflows.
• Maintain and oversee the editorial/content calendar, anticipating bottlenecks and proactively resolving conflicts.
• Organize and execute events, workshops, and stakeholder engagements -- logistics across parallel work streams.
• Synthesize insights from research, engagements, and support internal knowledge-sharing and inform strategy.

2. External Development Partner Management

• Serve as the Academy's primary stakeholder to the internal technical product development team.
• Scope technical requirements, define deliverables, and submit detailed PRDs to the technical product development team.
• Translate Academy operational needs and user feedback into clear, prioritized technical requests.
• Track status of submitted technical work, communicate timelines back to Academy stakeholders, and flag dependencies or blockers.
• Participate in product planning and review cycles to represent Academy priorities and operational readiness.

3. Product Delivery & Execution

• Enable end-to-end execution of Academy product initiatives from discovery and planning through delivery, launch, and post-launch evaluation.
• Partner with Product to translate roadmap items into clear plans, milestones, success metrics, and resourcing models.
• Develop and maintain operating artifacts: delivery plans, dependency maps, risk/issue logs, launch readiness checklists.
• Track progress against timelines, capacity, and success criteria — proactively identifying risks, tradeoffs, and bottlenecks.

4. Cross-Functional Alignment

• Serve as a coordination hub across Product, Engineering, Data, Marketing, Operations, Research, and Leadership.
• Facilitate operating rhythms: planning sessions, stand-ups, delivery reviews, launch retros.
• Ensure alignment between product vision, technical execution, go-to-market readiness, and operational support.
• Communicate clearly and consistently with stakeholders at all levels, including senior leadership.

5. Process & Continuous Improvement

• Identify gaps, friction points, and inefficiencies in Academy and product delivery workflows; design and implement improvements.
• Standardize and evolve operations processes, templates, documentation, and tooling.
• Support the adoption of best practices across Agile, hybrid, or custom delivery models.
• Provide transparent reporting on progress, risks, and outcomes with clear recommendations.

Operating Context

This section is designed to set realistic expectations for candidates about the actual environment:

• Fast-paced, technology-driven organization managing multiple concurrent initiatives with limited internal development resources.
• Highly cross-functional, matrixed environment with shifting priorities and timelines.
• External development is handled through contracted partners (not an internal engineering team)—this role manages those relationships and deliverables, not the code.
• Budget for external technical resources is constrained; the role requires strong judgment about scoping, sequencing, and tradeoffs.
• Distributed/remote collaboration using modern project management and communication tools.
• The role requires balancing structured delivery discipline with operational flexibility.

Required Qualifications

• 5–8+ years of experience in operations management, program/project management, or similar roles managing multiple complex initiatives.
• Proven ability to manage external development partners, vendors, or consultants—including scoping work, tracking deliverables, and holding partners accountable.
• Experience running operational communications, content coordination, or engagement programs.
• Strong expertise in project planning, scheduling, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
• Excellent organizational and time-management skills with high attention to detail.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communication; ability to influence without authority.
• Proficiency with project management tools (Jira, Asana, Monday.com, Smartsheet, or similar).
• Notion and Hubspot experience, specifically with automations and no-code/low-code tools.
• Customer experience knowledge, with the ability to consider customer impact and UX, friction, etc

Logistics

Location

• Full-time. This role requires in-office collaboration at our headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Benefits

• 100% company-paid health, dental, and vision
• 100% company-paid short and long-term disability, life, and accident insurance
• Unlimited PTO + 8 paid holidays
• 401K via Accrue
• Free access to all Contrarian Thinking courses and flagship communities