Lead strategy and execution for Core Services shared-platform products. Own roadmap, orchestration, APIs, adoption, platform health metrics, and a team of Product Managers while partnering with Engineering, Data, and Design to scale reusable services and improve developer velocity.
At Wave, we help small businesses to thrive so the heart of our communities beats stronger. We work in an environment buzzing with creative energy and inspiration. No matter where you are or how you get the job done, you have what you need to be successful and connected. The mark of true success at Wave is the ability to be bold, learn quickly and share your knowledge generously.
The Group Product Manager, Core Services is a strategic and highly technical product leader responsible for defining and scaling the shared services layer that powers product innovation across the organization. This role owns the strategy and execution of core shared services, including orchestration workflows, business capabilities, and reusable platform services, that enable customer-facing product teams to build, launch, and scale experiences efficiently, consistently, and at scale.
This leader manages a team of Product Managers and brings deep platform product management experience with a strong internal customer mindset – driving adoption of shared services, APIs, and workflow capabilities while balancing short-term delivery needs with long-term platform health. This role requires strong business judgment, technical fluency, and influential leadership to partner across the organization and build toward a unified platform vision.
Here’s How You Make an Impact:
- Define and lead the product vision, strategy, roadmap, OKRs, and success metrics for the Core Services group that enable product teams to build and scale efficiently.
- Collaborate deeply with Engineering, Architecture, and Data leaders to shape Core Services direction, guide critical technical and business trade-offs, and prioritize investments across scalability, reliability, data foundations, and operational efficiency.
- Own the Core Services orchestration layer across system, services, and data flows – acting as the product leader for internal customers (product teams, engineers, and data partners) by identifying reusable services, APIs, workflows, and data capabilities that reduce duplication, improve consistency, and accelerate delivery while maintaining scalability, extensibility, and resilience.
- Drive adoption and impact of shared services across the organization, leading onboarding, enablement, documentation, and change management to ensure teams effectively leverage platform capabilities and standards.
- Define and monitor platform health and success metrics, including adoption, usage, service reliability, performance, and return on foundational investments.
- Lead and develop a high-performing team of Product Managers, establishing strong platform product management practices across discovery, prioritization, execution, and cross-functional alignment.
- Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Data, Design, and business stakeholders – partnering closely with product and technical leaders to ensure Core Services evolves in step with the company’s product vision, translating complex technical concepts into clear business value and guiding leaders on key trade-offs between speed, scale, risk, and longterm platform health.
- Identify and leverage AI-enabled capabilities and workflows to improve product velocity, quality, aligned with business priorities and deliver measurable impact.
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement, driving operational excellence through retrospectives, learning, coaching, and ongoing refinement of platform processes and ways of working.
You Thrive Here By Possessing the Following:
- Experience owning platform, infrastructure, API, developer tooling, data platform, or other highly technical products used by internal teams or external developers.
- Strong technical fluency in distributed systems, platform architecture, service-oriented design, cloud or infrastructure concepts, and data foundations, with the ability to engage credibly with architects, senior engineers, and data leaders in both strategic and tactical discussions.
- Proven ability to define product strategy, derive requirements, analyze trade-offs, and prioritize investments across multiple teams and stakeholders in a matrixed environment.
- Demonstrated experience translating complex technical platform investments into measurable business outcomes such as increased scale, improved reliability, reduced cost, faster delivery, or stronger customer and developer experiences.
- Strong people leadership experience, including leading Product Managers, developing talent, setting priorities, and building high-performing teams.
- Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences and influence senior stakeholders across business and technology functions.
- Strong business acumen, including experience building business cases, evaluating tradeoffs, and aligning product investments to customer value, company priorities, and financial outcomes.
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Data-related field, or a related discipline, or the equivalent through a combination of education and relevant work experience.
- 8+ years of product management experience, including ownership of complex, highly technical products with significant business and technology impact, with a minimum of 2+ years leading product teams at the Group level or above.
At Wave, we value diversity of perspective. Your unique experience enriches our organization. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Let’s talk about how you can thrive here!
Wave is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible candidate experience. If you require accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know by emailing [email protected]. We will work with you to meet your needs.
We use Google Gemini, a secure AI assistant, during interviews for note-taking purposes only. Notes are kept confidential and are not shared outside the hiring process. This allows our interviewers to stay fully focused on you during the conversation.
This advertised posting is a current vacancy.
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