"Senior Product Operations Manager"

Senior Product Operations Manager

Company: Western Governors University

Job Location: Salt Lake City Office

Category: IT Manager/Director

Type: Full-Time

Job Type: Full time

Job Number: JR-022891

Location: Salt Lake City Office

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future-consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 407 Pay Range: $105,600.00 - $158,400.00

Job Description

The Senior Product Operations Manager is responsible for collaborating with leadership to identify, create, and develop processes and best practices for the Product Organization. As a key leader in creating the standard for cross- functional communication & visibility, you will surface the insights required to help our Product Organization define effective product strategies and function optimally.

Your collaboration with leaders and individual contributors from Product & UX creates excellent governance, continuous improvement of processes and communication, and most importantly, transparency throughout and enablement of the Product Organization. You help connect us with our users and business partners by creating and optimizing processes and best practices utilizing excellent communication methods. You empower our Product Organization by helping us find and remove our inefficiencies, and by helping us achieve better business and user outcomes.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Builds and maintains dashboards that operationalize KPIs set by Product leadership, partnering with the Product Analytics team to ensure reliable data sources and providing visibility into adherence to product management standards, backlog health, and delivery metrics.
• Facilitates recurring Product Ops Metrics reviews with Product Directors, presenting insights and trends to drive accountability and continuous improvement.
• Translates measurement areas defined by leadership into concrete, well-defined metrics and reporting processes that can be consistently tracked over time, collaborating with analytics partners as needed.
• Analyzes historical data to demonstrate improvements in product practices and highlight areas where further focus is needed.
• Ensures reporting mechanisms are accurate, actionable, and aligned with organizational goals.
• Standardizes documentation and creates templates/frameworks for roadmaps, strategy reviews, product briefs, vision statements, release plans, experiment findings, and internal communications.
• Supports backlog health standards and intake processes, enabling consistency and discipline across the product organization.
• Partners with Product and UX leadership to improve governance, drive continuous improvement, and enhance transparency across the organization.
• Organizes workshops and trainings to upskill employees and embed product management best practices.
• Collaborates with cross-functional partners (e.g., Portfolio Operations, Change Management, Engineering) to ensure alignment of processes that enable value delivery.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Proficiency in data visualization and analytics tools (PowerBI, ThoughtSpot, or equivalent BI tool experience preferred) to design compelling dashboards.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analysis skills with the ability to translate data into clear narratives and recommendations for senior leadership.
• Experience facilitating discussions with senior leaders using data-driven insights to influence decisions and reinforce accountability.
• Ability to create repeatable reporting processes that measure progress over time and support leadership's strategic objectives in partnership with the Product Analytics team.
• Deep understanding of product management and Agile practices, with the ability to evangelize methodologies and coach others on best practices.
• Strong process design and implementation skills to improve operational efficiency across the product lifecycle.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills for influencing stakeholders and aligning cross-functional teams.
• Ability to plan, organize, and manage strategic initiatives with high attention to detail and follow-through.
• Effective collaboration skills to build consensus and motivate others in a matrixed organization.

Competencies:

Organizational Impact: Develops and implements plan to accomplish division or job area responsibilities that align with department Performance may affect department results Work requires knowledge of the University to recognize impact of decisions made Works to achieve operational targets with significant to major impact on department, function, or office results. May be responsible for managing large projects or processes within the department, function, or office Performs work as directed with limited oversight

Problem Solving and Decision Making: Responsible for leveraging a systems-thinking approach, making moderate to significant improvements of processes, systems, and plans within the department, function, or office Problems and issues faced are numerous and challenging, will require detailed information gathering and analysis. Problems typically affect multiple areas or specialties

Communication and Influence: Collaborates cross-functionally with employees within and outside of the department. Has responsibility for communicating with parties external to the University Works to influence parties within and outside the department, function, or office regarding policies, procedures, and practices

Leadership & Talent Management: Is responsible for providing guidance, coaching, and training to other employees in the department, function, or office. Responsible for managing projects involving delegation of work and review of others' work products. Demonstrates the WGU leadership principles in all aspects of service to students, employees, and partners of WGU

Job Qualifications:

Minimum Qualifications: Typically requires a University Degree or equivalent Minimum of 5 years related experience, with 2+ years of software Product Management experience Pragmatic Institute or other Product Certification/training Experience with product-led technology teams Experience within an Agile software development environment Minimum 5 years of experience performing operations functions within a software development context Minimum 2 years of experience in a leadership role Experience with Product Management and/or software development tools/software (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Lucid, Mural, Roadmapping software, etc.)

Preferred Qualifications: Product Operations training Master's degree in a related field of study Change Practitioner Certification Previous experience in Education Technology