Get to know Rise Buildings!

We are Rise Buildings, a PropTech ecosystem for residential and commercial buildings. We were founded in 2015 by two neighbors, one a tech industry veteran, the other in real estate. Our product offering includes hardware and software solutions deployed internationally across in the US, Canada, and Ireland. We have 20,000 users today who use our mobile and web-based platforms.

Rise aims to put seamless automation into residential and commercial life, into spaces which have been traditionally low-tech. We currently have a large feature set that’s continually expanding and deepening, and our platform is leveraged by everyone in the building including tenants, management, and staff.  We want to modernize and reinvent the landscape of the real estate industry.

We are looking for an awesome Product Manager to join us. You’ll be trusted with a high level of responsibility and report directly to our CTO. Prior knowledge of the real estate industry is not required. We will teach you all you need to know.

What We’re Looking For

• Kick-ass verbal, written, and presentation skills. Smart, clear, and compelling. Can present the vision, advantage, value, and excitement of Rise’s products.

• Masterful communication with diverse groups, both internal and external to the company. These include development, design, QA, executive, sales and prospects, current customers, etc.

• Ability to forge alignment from interested groups and stakeholders. Make sure dev, sales, and our customers are all on the same page.

• Be a representative of the Rise Buildings ecosystem in a B2B environment. Be the ‘go-to’ expert and communicate with clients for new feature launches. Help with development of marketing materials.

• Be able to tease out the needs and assumptions of customers that they are either not aware of, or are not able to verbalize, especially related to greenfield development.

• Fulfill the role of Product Owner in Agile/SCRUM workflows. Own the full Agile lifecycle of feature development-- requirements, design, implementation, QA, and release.

• You don’t need to code but you’ll be the intermediary between business and tech.

• Manage development teams with sprint planning and feature prioritization, acceptance criteria, communicate things like scope and customer expectations to dev, provide decision-making, and UAT.

• Maintain and prioritize our backlog.

• Conduct incremental Agile product releases, which are refined iteratively with retrospection and customer feedback. We aim for continuous improvement and value add.

• Define, monitor, and analyze success with KPI metrics.

• Discover new opportunities or valuable conclusions from research and data analysis.

• Help us determine strategic direction for the company. Stay on top of industry trends and other competitors in the marketplace.

What You Bring

• Prior experience working in a fast-paced start-up environment. You can pick up new and loosely-defined tasks, and run with them without the need for hand-holding.

• Love of what you do and passion for our business and product.

• Proactiveness. You don’t need to wait for instructions. Take ownership, take charge, and own it.

• Independent thought. You can spot ambiguity and logical inconsistencies. You make suggestions and tell us what we can be better at.

• Bachelor's degree. BS in a technical field or an MBA is a plus.

• Experience as a Product Manager or Product Owner. Prior success in managing and delivering large-scale projects on time and with high quality.

• Fluency with JIRA or similar.

• Fluency with Google Analytics or similar.

• Expertise working with Agile development lifecycle and Agile SCRUM best practices. Scrum Product Owner Certification is a plus.

• Skillful balancing of multiple projects and ability to manage time effectively while meeting internal and release deadlines. Prioritize competing features and products, while keeping an eye on the overall business needs.

• Leadership in cross-team collaboration, and ability to manage, supervise, and motivate. Experience managing globally distributed development teams is a plus.

• Some limited travel (a few times per year) may be required for customer visits.

What We Can Offer You

• A flat organization where you can take on as much responsibility as you want.

• A company that is truly entrepreneurial in all that we do. See the company’s workings from the ground up, and get involved at every stage of the game. Everyone is key in success. See the full impact of your work.

• A fun, challenging environment where everyone has skin in the game. We work hard but enjoy what we do and have fun together.

• An exciting and passionate team with deep expertise in both technology and real estate. You can learn a lot from us, and we can learn a lot from you.

• A bright, energetic office in the bustling West Loop neighborhood in Chicago that’s close to fun places to eat and play.