The Lead Product Manager is the business champion and team linguist that is accountable for maximizing the value of their product in partnership with their development team. You will own the details, requirements, and communication of the business value delivered at the team level. You translate business requirements into product requirements to ensure that your team builds a product that delivers on user needs.  

This role will be the primary product manager for the Data Direct product, an API first product delivering syndicated data assets to clients, as well as the newly launched UI ordering capability. The person in this role is responsible for the strategy and execution of the Data Direct roadmap, shepherding a future of growth for both syndicated and custom assets for clients needing raw data at scale.  A successful candidate will have a deep understanding of product management and iterative software development, as well as exemplify keen stakeholder management and a desire to make our users’ lives easier.  API experience is a bonus.

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• Establish the strategy for Data Direct, syndicated and custom assets, now and in the future. 
• Oversee product development process including discovery, release breakdown, development, quality assurance testing, stakeholder collaboration, launch, user feedback / research, and iterative roadmap planning.
• Drive business value for the team by prioritizing and ordering product backlog items based on the product roadmap, inclusive of product, engineering, UX and data science roadmaps. 
• Experienced in managing team’s product backlog and ensuring it is transparent, visible and clearly communicated. 
• Partner with cross-functional engineering, agile delivery, experience design, commercial stakeholders and data science peers to translate business desires/requirements into effective features and stories that are ready for development. 
• Outlines clear acceptance criteria, to clearly communicate the definition of “done” 
• Stakeholder management – experienced in building and managing internal and external stakeholder relationships to influence and drive change. 
• Experienced level knowledge in the development and use of product data to influence product decisions/roadmap – both quantitative and qualitative. 
• Deep understanding of the business domain, stakeholders, business processes and constraints in which your product(s) play  
• Deep understanding of customers/users’ problems, how they think and operate and the platforms/technology they use. Ability to become familiar with new technology, business domains, and/or analytical practices that impact your product(s). 
• Understand and communicate organization objectives, strategies and solution needs to the team to facilitate results (where collaborative/as colleague) 
• Manage and communicate dependencies and risks across teams and the organization at large
• Participate in product support triage and on-call rotation to ensure the product is operational and user issues are addressed. 

Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the United Stated and with the Kroger Family of Companies (i.e. H1-B visa, F-1 visa (OPT), TN visa or any other non-immigrant status).

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, AND EXPERIENCE:  

• Proven experience owning API‑driven products where external clients ingest data into their own infrastructure.
• Comfort designing experiences that serve both technical (API) and non‑technical (UI) users.
• Proven ability to understand how clients operationalize data internally (analytics teams, IT, data science, BI).
• Comfortable engaging directly with clients to validate needs, diagnose friction, and prioritize improvements.
• Strong partner to Sales, Account Teams, and Enablement on product positioning, client onboarding, change management when migrating from legacy exports or tools
• Experience with product launch activities including alpha/beta/general release management. Monitor product performance post-launch and make necessary adjustments based on user feedback and/or other user signals.
• Experience partnering with commercial go-to-market, user education, and product support teams
• Experience with product analytics toolkit to measure feature success
• Skilled in managing cross-functional software development teams in an agile environment 
• Skilled in managing business priorities against design/user needs while delivering against product roadmaps 
• Skilled in managing end-to-end software product development as well as solid understanding of data product management. 
• Stakeholder management skills – experienced in building and managing stakeholder relationships to influence and drive change. 
• Problem solving, critical thinking and analytical skills 
• Planning, organizational and time management skills 
• Comfort with ambiguity – remains confident, positive and resourceful in the face of ambiguity and unexpected results; recovers quickly from setbacks. 
• Exhibits qualities of and have proven to be a great teammate 
• Verbal and written communication skills, ability to translate between business and technical 
• Technical acumen – grasps the technical details to lead a team 
• 4-6 years relevant experience 
• Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience 

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