Technical Product Manager
Technical Product Manager – PEAK6 Technologies
We are PEAK6, a leading investment firm. You'll find us headquartered in the historic Chicago Board of Trade building, where we first opened our doors in 1997. It's been over 20 years since we were one of the first firms to develop sophisticated proprietary technology to use in our trading business. Today, we continue to leverage our technical ingenuity and operational excellence across several investment areas, spanning early-to-mid stage growth capital, operational control, trading, e-sports, and food insurance while always proving value to the customer. Throughout the years, we've built and operated several technology firms, and we continue to evolve. You'll find a bit of everything here, and we're always looking to take on new endeavors.
You’ll be responsible for defining the products we build and ensuring that they provide maximum value upon delivery. Our product managers get to know their products inside and out and love working with business experts and engineers. They also get to put their own stamp on everything they do.
We’re looking for someone who:
- Is passionate. You love using technology differently to maximize customer impact and you have a way of bringing out that same fire in the people you work with
- Is motivated. You’re driven to be the best – whether that’s decreasing system down time or making an innovative change to “how it’s always been done”
- Is collaborative. You’re excited to work with fellow engineers and big thinkers. You know how to collaborate not only within the department, but also across organizations
- Wants to make an impact. You’re looking to do amazing work. You value preventing problems from occurring over putting out fires and looking for the “hero” spotlight
What you’ll do all day:
- Define the tools and features we need to build. Peak6’s edge is its technology products. And as a product owner, you’ll be responsible for defining what products we should be building and also determining their outcomes.
- Become an expert: Becoming a product expert can require anything from reading pages of government regulations to attending industry conferences and visiting customers. And of course you are expected to talk often with internal subject matter experts (SMEs). Don’t apply if you don’t like learning!
- Collaborate with the business and SMEs on technology strategy. You will meet regularly with subject matter experts, key customers, and senior-level decision makers to ensure everyone agrees to the same product vision. An important part of the job is also to document and communicate that vision to ensure we have a written record of key decisions and outcomes.
- Make us better. We want to stand out in the crowd. What new cool, innovative and smart technologies should we be exploring? We want to be different and we want people to look at us as the industry leaders in employing and building cutting edge technologies
Responsibilities
- Business analysis and requirements gathering
- Create Wire frames
- Understand our place in the market and the needs of our customers.
- Work with cross-functional teams to develop and document detailed product requirements and lead products from design to launch.
- Provide insights and actionable recommendations for business stakeholders based on deep analysis and alignment with business goals.
- Use business metrics to drive strategy and innovation.
- Manage value stream network for flow.
- Be accountable for the functional and financial success of your products.
- Position requires 30%+ time for travel. (We’re a distributed company.)
The skills you’ll need to succeed
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Science, Engineering or Technical discipline
- 3-7 years experience technical product experience
- Ability to dig into business or technical problems and find pragmatic solutions.
- Demonstrated full-life cycle ownership of product development.
- Strong ability to listen & learn, but also to question assumptions.
- Experience researching, defining and documenting market and product requirements.
- Insurance or finance industry experience a strong plus.
- Understanding of Agile practices and strong preference for incremental delivery.
- Demonstrated inter-personal, verbal, and written communication.
Life at PEAK6
We want you to like coming to work so we work hard to make your job fun and different from any other.
As a product manager at PEAK6 Technologies, you can enjoy:
- Generous medical, vision and dental plans
- Matching 401(k) programs
- Adoption assistance & family leave
- Sabbatical program
- Massage days
- Poker tournament with a grand prize of a World Series of Poker buy in
- Sports leagues
- Cornhole tournaments
- Annual PEAK6 Party
- Yoga classes
- Tuition reimbursement
- Lasik eye discount
- Philanthropy events
- Annual wellness screens and flu shots
- Bagel Fridays/expiration lunches
- Birthday gifts
- Charitable matching gift program