Product Manager Return Path

The Return Path Experience

Don’t get us wrong, it’s not easy to land a gig at RP. You’re going to have to learn the ins and outs of our business before you even get here. Here’s the good news: only the best and brightest minds in email work here. So, once you’re in, this is a place where you’ll be challenged, inspired, rewarded and transformed. Really you ask? Yes, really. The Return Path experience is a two-way exchange. We ask you to give us your very best every day. We expect a lot from you. We challenge you with interesting work, stretch assignments, a collaborative work environment and a ton of learning and growth. The pace is fast and furious. In exchange, we give you everything you need to live a happy, balanced life. This includes great pay, open vacation (yup, you heard that right!), great benefits, flexibility and, well, whatever else you need. Everyone is unique and we pride ourselves on not having one-size-fits-all solutions. At Return Path you’re a person, not a title. What’s important in your life right now? Kids, pets, triathlons, church, tango, karate, yoga, parents, Pilates, pre-natal â€" we will support you through it all. Give and take. That’s a Return Path career path.

The Impact You’ll Have at RP

The Product Manager will be responsible for identifying client needs in our target markets and defining services to meet those needs. You’ll drive the process of building innovative new products that clients want to buy and engaging in a conversation with the marketplace to ensure client needs are understood and met.

The position reports to a Group Product Manager and will work closely with Clients, as well as Client Services, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and Operations groups. Detail responsibilities include:

• Product Strategy
  
  • Discover and validate market problems (both existing and future customers).
  • Analyze the competitive landscape.
  • Determine and maintain innovative roadmap to address market problems and evolves the existing feature set.
  • Support product strategy, including all technical, positioning and promotional aspects.
  • Contribute to product business plan including pricing, revenue forecasts, product/service dependencies and profitability.
  • Assist in evaluation of buy/build/partner decisions; own partner relationship management.
• Product Management
  
  • Write business requirements, use case scenarios and user personas to drive engineering development.
  • Provide direction to and work closely with the project management and engineering teams during product conception, pilot and development.
  • Determine development priorities and support definition and roll out of required maintenance activities.
  • Maintain internal and external dialog regarding product roadmap
• Product Marketing
  
  • Work closely with Product Marketing to define key selling propositions and develop relevant marketing materials.
  • Support the evolution of product/service competitive positioning and pricing, working with Marketing and Sales.
  • Drive cross-functional product launches that are timely, accurate, and compelling.
  • Enable creation of standard presentations and demo scripts.
  • Facilitate internal training including competitive threats and related industry news.
  • Support Sales, Account Management, and Marketing with product expertise as necessary in closing key deals and addressing current client inquiries.

 What does it take to be successful in this role?

• 5+ years product management or equivalent experience managing the process of defining and building products and services; ideally for web-based services and vendor(s).
• You have a passion for email and experiment with different strategies and technologies for making it a more successful tool.
• Experience with email campaigns, analytics and subscription processes.
• Experience with market research, competitive analysis, product concept validation, and prototype testing.
• You have demonstrated successful experience working in a hands-on, fast-paced, creative, entrepreneurial environment, in a cross-functional capacity.
• Strong project management capabilities, attention to detail, and an ability to multi-task.
• You interact well with individuals of different levels and skill sets backgrounds.
• You have strong analytic and strategic thinking skills, plus ability to function on a tactical level as needed.
• You are results-oriented, high-energy self-starter with great interpersonal skills
• Desired Education Level: BS/BA required, MBA a plus.

Role Specific Competencies

• Customer Focus â€" Builds customer confidence, is committed to increasing customer satisfaction, sets achievable customer expectations, takes a proactive approach to customer service; assumes responsibility for solving customer problems, ensures commitments to customers are met, solicits opinions and ideas from customers, responds to internal customers.
• Quality - Is attentive to detail and accuracy, is committed to excellence, looks for improvements continuously, monitors quality levels, finds root cause of quality problems, owns/acts on quality problems.
• Analytical Skills -Thinks analytically and creatively to make the most of available data. Generates new ideas, takes risks, proposes change, encourages innovation, and solves problems creatively.
• Project Management - Establishes project goals, milestones, and procedures, defines roles and responsibilities, acquires project resources, coordinates projects throughout company, monitors project progress, manages multiple projects and communicates effectively with key stakeholders.

In addition to the above, you must be a good fit at Return Path. To be successful here, you must demonstrate Personal/Professional Growth, Professionalism, Flawless Execution, and Strategic Thinking; have a Positive Impact and a great sense of humor. Visit our website to read detailed descriptions of expectations at each of the 4 levels at RP: (1) Learning, (2) Applying, (3) Guiding and (4) Shaping. This position is categorized at the Applying level.

What it's like to work here

It's great! From the CEO and senior management team to the newest entry-level employee, we are a company that cares a lot about fostering a great work environment and a fun, energetic, success-oriented culture. We have a strong philosophical belief that our people are our most important assets. And we don't just pay lip service to that phrase -- we incorporate it into our policies, and we live it every day. Yes, that philosophy means we have generous 'traditional' benefits, and it also means we take a lot of time to focus on high quality management and leadership, and time to make sure everyone in the company is in the right job, knows how his or her job contributes to the overall company mission, and has a clear sense of learning and career growth. We have great employee retention over the years because people love coming to work here and really feel like they're part of something special. For more information visit www.returnpath.net.