Associate Product Manager - Freelance [Remote]

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• LOCATION: Remote - United States only (TimeZone: CST | Partial overlap)
• HOURLY RANGE: Our client is looking to pay $40 – $70/hr
• ESTIMATED DURATION: 40h/week - Short term
• JOB TYPE: Freelance, Contract Position (no agencies/C2C - see notes below)

THE OPPORTUNITY
Requirements
What Our Client is Looking For

• Experience working in cross-functional teams using agile methodologies.
• Willingness to complete a background check for public trust security clearance
• Expert in Agile frameworks, software development lifecycle, and documentation.
• Nice to have: experience working with the federal government (VA experience preferred).
• Experience turning research synthesis into clear and succinct epics and user stories that development teams can understand.
• Experience uncovering client processes, methods, and tools and evolving approaches to align with client expectations.
• Experience or desire to learn how to integrate design thinking into Agile and deliver using Lean Product Development methodologies.
• An outcome-oriented approach focused on delivering value to end users backed by measurable, data-driven results.
• 3+ years of industry experience in software development and product management managing projects, preferably with PaaS and SaaS product experience (e.g., Salesforce, ServiceNow).
• A desire to seek different perspectives, and ask for help when needed.
• Experience developing products that are accessible.

About The Role
As an Associate Product Manager, you'll learn to be a patient, precise, and effective leader-in-the-making, practicing industry-leading product management principles and agile delivery methodologies.
You'll work on public service projects that directly impact veterans and their families, experiencing unparalleled satisfaction. Our client's commitment to culture, innovation, and collaboration sets us apart. Work alongside talented professionals who share a common goal of improving lives, with diverse perspectives and experiences valued and encouraged.
The world of civic tech offers abundant opportunities. If you're a bold and intrepid problem-solver looking for a dynamic and inclusive environment where you can make a real difference, apply for this exciting Associate Product Manager role.
What You’ll Do

• Be a part of a multidisciplinary team to drive from insight to product and features in the market, understand business problems, break them down into components, prioritize the work from concept to delivery, and drive them toward desired outcomes with evidence-based decisions and attention to detail.
• You’ll be the go-to person for backlog management.
• Set success metrics and measures the impact of product, features, and iterations post-release to guide next iterations/product decisions.
• Engage peers within the government ecosystem to proactively and collaboratively problem-solve issues that impact our ability to deliver desired outcomes.
• Understand opportunities and constraints across the business, technical architecture, and end-user needs; ruthlessly focus capacity on the highest priority features, epics, and user stories.
• Ensure the scope of iterations and increments is understood by the team.
• Map and track dependencies and remove team blockers.
• Conduct user research and stakeholder engagement to effectively translate business requirements and user research outputs into a product vision, strategy, MVP definition, and a product backlog of well-defined user stories with acceptance criteria.
• Lead scrum / Agile ceremonies helping drive team progress.
• Provide documentation on the status and product, and partner with the Program Manager to proactively communicate status, priorities, risks, and mitigation strategies and ensure operational support for product delivery.
• Design for change by creating and nurturing relationships with stakeholders across the product ecosystem, proactively engaging impacted stakeholders to ensure the seamless rollout of new value propositions and features.

What you’ll be working on
Company Context
Our client helps government leaders achieve their mission by designing intuitive and sustainable customer experiences that build trust and improve satisfaction. They use human-centered design to modernize and transform customer and employee experiences. They’re a small team of interdisciplinary creatives with mission, impact, and service to others deeply rooted in their DNA. They’re naive enough to believe they can change the world and bold enough to take the chance to do it.
Our client combines design thinking with agile delivery methods to drive visionary, human-centered products to market. The custom solutions range in size from completely revamping an entire application to refreshing small pieces of a larger product. Everyone at this company directly impacts the direction and success of the company, and they own the roles. They value integrity, curiosity, and courage, and they operate collaboratively and with accountability while consistently challenging each other in the pursuit of excellence. They delight in creating one-of-a-kind products and experiences. Your imagination is the only limit on what you can do here!
THE PROJECT CONTEXT
Our client is looking for two Associate Product Managers to partner with a Program Manager, Product Owner, Design Lead, and Solution Architect to lead and direct multi-disciplinary teams through the HCD process for their client in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In this position, you will be working in a small, cross-functional team of researchers, designers, product managers, and solution architects to understand and synthesize customer needs, strategize improved service delivery, and design innovative solutions built on SaaS and PaaS products for VA employees inside various Program Offices of the Veterans Business Administration (e.g., Education, Home Loans, Vocational Rehab, Claims, etc.).
The first challenge kicks off with imagining a simple, automated future for the Office of Financial Management, including defining and developing a customer-focused workflow management solution using Salesforce. As a part of this team, you will also contribute to the culture, process, and visioning of growing design capabilities. If you have experience integrating human centered design practices into the deployment of impactful, scalable digital services they’d love to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES / PLAN / DELIVERABLES
They are looking for a seasoned design lead to partner with a team to accomplish the following objectives. This can / will likely evolve, but a quick example for context setting.

• Understand, advocate for and integrate the voice of VA employees, Veterans and other key stakeholders into the development of a simple, intuitive end-to-end experience
• Uncover customer needs, translate research insights into a clear product vision and strategy for a new instance of Salesforce - used by the VBA Office of Financial Management
• Identify opportunities for positive change and maximize impact for VA and Veterans

Apply Now!
Braintrust Job ID: 6470
C2C Candidates: This role is not available to C2C candidates working with an agency. If you are a professional contractor who has created an LLC/corp around their consulting practice, this is well aligned with Braintrust and we’d welcome your application.
Braintrust values the multitude of talents and perspectives that a diverse workforce brings. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status.