Family Engagement Lab is committed to addressing critical needs among traditionally underserved families, particularly low-income and immigrant families, to improve educational outcomes. 

Our program FASTalk (Families and Schools Talk) supports our mission by giving teachers a simple and accessible way to send text messages to families, in their home language, with activities aligned to high-quality ELA and mathematics curricula. Through tips that promote positive parent-child interactions at home, FASTalk engages families to support their child’s learning and improve student achievement. 

Learn more at http://www.familyengagementlab.org/. 

THE ROLE:

We’re looking for a full-time Product Manager who will support Family Engagement Lab’s strategic vision through the planning and execution of the FASTalk product roadmap. Through a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens, the Project Manager will manage the life cycle of the product from market requirements to product release, implementation, adoption, and iteration. 

The ideal candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment, loves solving complex problems and is motivated by working on products that help advance equitable educational outcomes. We’re looking for someone with a proven track record of being able to uncover product opportunities, propose solutions, plan, and deliver strong results. The Product Manager reports directly to the Chief Impact Officer and will interface regularly across the Family Engagement Lab team, including product, customer success, content, and research. 

Family Engagement Lab works with innovative partners, including the Louisiana Department of Education, Oakland Unified, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, and Baltimore City Schools. Our work has been recognized by leading academic institutions, such as Harvard University, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and  J-Pal at MIT. We are generously supported by foundations, including the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Walton Family Foundation, and others. Because of our success with FASTalk, professional learning and other services, more education leaders (states, districts, curriculum, professional learning, and advocacy) are seeking our help to bridge best practices in authentic family engagement and student learning to support educational equity. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• Conduct competitive research and analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) and lead efforts to gather customer feedback in an equitable and culturally competent manner

• Translate market requirements into functional specifications (user stories)

• Utilize data to understand customer needs and behaviors as well as business objectives, and enable the team to transform that knowledge into product enhancements and new features

• Gather, define, and prioritize product requirements in support of an equity-focused product roadmap

• Clearly communicate product vision and strategy to:

• get all members of the cross-functional team aligned and motivated

• help secure strategic partners and funders

• Collaborate with teammates across the organization to ensure business and customer goals are met

• Define, prioritize, and scope efforts related to new functionality and features for existing products as well as new product offerings

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree 

• Three or more years of product management experience or demonstrated success in roles requiring cycles of learning to identify needs and design innovative, data-based solutions (we are open to applicants with non-traditional product management backgrounds and encourage all applicants to apply if they meet one of these criteria) 

• Lived and/or professional experience working in culturally, linguistically, and racially diverse environments

• Experience with software project management tools

• Strong project management, organizational skills, and an understanding of how to develop and prioritize functional requirements

• History of successfully launching new, customer-driven experiences, especially in a start-up environment 

• A solid understanding of basic statistics

• Ability to communicate effectively across the organization about product and market, including making recommendations to executive management and Board of Directors

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including ability to communicate effectively with remote teams and customers

• Demonstrated understanding of and commitment to supporting equity and inclusion

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Previous experience with Agile product development methods 

• Experience running user experiments, interviewing, and surveying users 

ESSENTIAL MINDSETS:

• Continuous discovery mentality - talking to customers to validate your own assumptions about the needs of a product while examining and unpacking bias as part of your process

• An experimentation mindset - using data to incrementally iterate on both products and processes, inform product decisions, and measure post-launch impact

• A passion for improving technology tools, ideally for educators and/or families

• Willingness to respond rapidly to change based on feedback, knowing that what is true today in the product, the school, and the customers might not be true tomorrow

We encourage applications from all backgrounds, especially BIPOC or applicants from traditionally underrepresented communities, and are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities.

OTHER DETAILS:

• This position is remote but requires regular communication by phone and video conferencing across the continental US. 

• This position requires occasional post-pandemic travel for customer visits and team meetings.

• Applicants must be able to commit to 40 hrs/week

• Desired start date: June 15, 2022

• Hours are flexible but candidates should be accessible between the hours of 9-2pm Pacific Time

• Salary for the position is $90,000-110,000 based on experience, and includes benefits

• Family Engagement Lab provides competitive medical, dental, and vision benefits, as well as a retirement plan with employer match. We also offer generous PTO + sick leave and 10 paid holidays annually

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:

Please submit a resume online and answer the application questions.