At Sprout Social, our business is our product. We build software used by 30,000+ organizations to create stronger relationships with their customers and create the world's most beloved brands. Our software is used by companies like the DoorDash, General Mills, Trello, Make-a-wish Foundation, Edelman, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. In order to succeed, we need to be relentless about building superior software and solving hard problems on our customers' behalf. This approach has earned Sprout awards both for our software ( G2 Crowd ) and our culture ( Glassdoor ). While we appreciate the recognition, we know we can get so much better.
As Director of Product Management for our platform product team, you'll lead a talented team of product managers to set a strategic vision and successfully execute against that. Our platform product team is responsible for building utilities and frameworks that bring consistency to user experiences and engineering approaches. This team removes the distributed burden from the feature-oriented solution teams. This includes services like link sharing, collaboration, notifications, user identity (authorization and authentication), account administration, and more.
You will also serve as one of the senior leaders of the overall product management team at Sprout. While you're passionate about solving hard problems, you're equally committed to individual mentorship and career development for your team. Beyond direct management responsibilities, you will help us continually improve how we operate and our team culture. Our product management team has quadrupled over the past four years. This creates new scale and also new needs. We believe there is much we can do to become stronger as a team and you will be a key part of this.
We're looking for a product leader with strong, empathetic leadership and management principles that align with our company values. If you have experience influencing without authority in a cross-functional, team-oriented environment, and a track record of successful results and managing others to achieve the same, we'd love to talk to you!
Qualifications
These are the minimum qualifications that our hiring team is looking for in this role:

• 10+ years of relevant career experience, with 4+ focused on Platform or Technical products
• 5+ years of experience in a Product leadership role or directly managing other Product Managers, ideally within a high-growth SaaS or B2B company
• Strong product sense and intuitively understands how to help product teams create world-class experiences

Additionally, these are the preferred qualifications that would indicate a particularly strong candidate:

• Demonstrated ability to quickly absorb technical concepts and effectively simplify and communicate them to a non-technical audience.
• Experience building and launching platform products, developer platforms, or microservices
• Experience with customer-facing application security (ie. login history, audit logs, custom password complexity, IP whitelisting, single sign on), identity access management, or account administration (permissions, roles, etc).

Within 1 month you will:

• Experience Sprout's in-depth onboarding, covering everything from our company mission and values, hearing directly from executives and founders, to deep training on our products and the value that Sprout delivers to our customers
• Make a plan with our VP of Product to set initial priorities, align on expectations for your role, plant goalposts for your career, and learn about Sprout's approach to product management
• Begin to build relationships with your PM team as well as across engineering, design, sales and Sprout's company executives.
• Try using the Sprout product yourself-to see it the way a customer does.

Within 3 months you will:

• Understand our current platform product team's product, strategy and roadmap.
• Begin to influence our feature priorities, execution and release quality to ensure strong outcomes for our customers and the business.
• Establish credibility and trust across your team and key internal partners to be able to become an effective coach and advocate.
• Coach and develop your direct reports towards achieving great results as well as personal growth.
• Identify key opportunities for improvement within your team and the overall PM team.
• Understand the engineering behind the Sprout product well enough that you can predict some product trade-offs and ask your team productive questions.

Within 6 months you will:

• Begin analyzing our qualitative and quantitative research to start forming hypotheses about how our product can better fit our customers' lives.
• Lead your team to set the strategic direction for the platform product team at Sprout.
• Start working with the platform PMs to set platform product strategy. Including capabilities, components, and APIs that would be used by multiple applications and customer facing features.
• Act as a culture and process leader for the overall product management team.
• Begin to influence product direction and design at the company level.

Within 12 months you will:

• Ensure a strong organization that exhibits company values while having a consistent high impact to the product and the business.
• Begin owning your team's performance against business goals and metrics
• Build on your developing customer/industry expertise and take firm ownership of your team's strategy
• Be ready to help solve the next phase of team problems -- including things we maybe haven't even anticipated yet!

Of course what is outlined above is the ideal timeline, but things may shift based on business needs and other projects and tasks could be added at the discretion of your manager.
About Sprout SocialSprout Social powers open communication between individuals, brands and communities through elegant, sophisticated software. We are relentless about solving hard problems for our customers and committed to both customer and team success. Our team's shared belief in Sprout's mission promotes a culture of openness, empowerment and fun.
We're proud to regularly be recognized for our team, product and culture. Our benefits program includes:

• Insurance and benefit options that are built for both individuals and families
• Progressive policies to support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave program
• High-quality and well-maintained equipment-your computer will never prevent you from doing your best
• Wellness initiatives to ensure both health and mental well-being of our team
• Ongoing education and development opportunities via our Grow@Sprout program, employee-led diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and mentorship programs for aspiring leaders
• Growing corporate social responsibility program that is driven by the involvement and passion of our team members
• Beautiful, convenient and state-of-the-art offices in Chicago's Loop and downtown Seattle, for those who prefer an office setting

Whenever possible, Sprout wants to provide our team with the flexibility to work in the location that makes the most sense for them. For those that prefer an office setting, this role may be based in our Chicago or Seattle locations. If you prefer to work from your home, we can accommodate that for many locations across the United States. We are not set up in all states, however, so please take a look at the drop down box in our application to see whether your state is listed.
Sprout Social is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and an Affirmative Action Employer. We do not discriminate based on identity- race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex (including sexual identity), age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, veteran or military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, arrest record or expunged or sealed convictions, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law. Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in our 2021 DEI Report .
If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at [email protected] and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. We'll do all we can to ensure you're set up for success during our interview process while upholding your privacy, including requests for accommodation. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.
For more information about our commitment to equal employment opportunity, please click here (1) Equal Opportunity Employment Poster (2) Sprout Social's Affirmative Action Statement (3) Pay Transparency Statement .
When you apply for employment with Sprout Social, we will process your job applicant data, including your employment and education history, transcript, writing samples, and references as necessary to consider your job application for open positions. For more information about our privacy practices please visit our Privacy Policy. California residents have additional rights and should review the Additional Disclosures for California Residents section in our Privacy Policy.
Additionally, Sprout Social participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law.
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