About the Role
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The Product Quality & Operations Lead is a pivotal role aimed at enhancing the operations of the Product organization to function at a high level of performance. This newly created position will oversee a team of Product Analysts and Product Operations Managers, ensuring that every product squad is equipped with the necessary infrastructure, cadence, and reliable data to operate efficiently while maintaining rigorous standards.
The role encompasses two critical areas: Operational Excellence, which involves tools, ceremonies, and development-lifecycle gates that ensure squads function consistently; and Data & Quality, which focuses on metrics, dashboards, and quality measures used to evaluate the effectiveness of the product organization. This unified approach is a first for the team, and the successful candidate will have a significant impact on shaping its future operations.
A key expectation for this role is that the individual possesses strong product expertise, having demonstrated success as a Product Manager or similar position, with the ability to translate that knowledge into effective processes, metrics, and standards. Credibility within the Product organization is paramount, requiring clear communication about product drivers, deliverables, and key business metrics.
Key Responsibilities
1. Team Leadership
- Hire, coach, and manage a team of Product Analysts and Product Operations Managers.
- Set priorities and operating rhythms across the team, balancing data analysis with operational activities.
- Act as the trusted representative for Product Quality & Operations in senior leadership forums, focusing on product delivery health and data quality.
2. Data, Analytics & Quality (through the Product Analysts)
- Quality Measurement: Own the core quality/reliability metric and its calculation methodology, ensuring consistency across teams.
- Metrics & Dashboards: Drive the implementation and instrumentation of key metrics and reporting dashboards for the product organization.
- Reporting Standards: Ensure consistent and comparable reporting across teams to maintain leadership's trust in the data.
- Partnership: Collaborate with Data/BI functions to keep dashboards accurate and ready for decision-making.
3. Operational Excellence (through the Product Operations Managers)
- Product Development Lifecycle: Manage consistent gates for discovery, design review, QA, and launch retrospectives across all squads.
- Tooling Administration: Oversee product management platforms, including user/license management and synchronization with delivery tools like Jira.
- Research Operations: Manage user recruitment, focus groups, and field/site visits to connect Product Managers with users.
- Governance & Reviews: Facilitate monthly and quarterly business reviews, ensuring that governance protocols (e.g., compliance, risk) are followed for accurate status reporting.
What Success Looks Like
- A well-led team with clear responsibility for operational delivery and data/quality work.
- Accurate and consistently adopted tooling across squads.
- Uniform adherence to development lifecycles, with genuine compliance with governance gates.
- Core quality/reliability metrics that are well-instrumented, regularly audited, and trusted by leadership.
- Streamlined research activities and user access for Product Managers, featuring a well-managed participant pipeline.
- A clear, shared understanding across the business of Product's work metrics and delivery, with Product Operations recognized as key to this transparency.
Skills & Experience
- Product Craft: Experience as a Product Manager or in a product-facing role, with a deep understanding of effective product organization operations.
- Data Insights: Capable of translating data into practical insights for the organization.
- Leadership Experience: Proven experience in managing product operations, program management, or analytics, including direct people management experience.
- Data & Measurement: Strong instincts in data, comfortable defining and defending a quality/reliability framework.
- Process Design: Experienced in designing and operating lifecycle gates, ceremonies, and business reviews across various teams.
- Tooling: Knowledge and experience in administering product management platforms (e.g., Productboard, Aha!, Jira Product Discovery).
- Research Coordination: Proficient in managing logistics for user research and participant recruitment.
- Stakeholder Management: Ability to collaborate effectively with teams in Product, Delivery, Data/BI, Design, and Compliance/Risk.
- Sector Experience: Experience in financial services, fintech, or emerging-market consumer products is favorable.
