Product Manager - Consumer Electronics

Description The Product Manager, Consumer Electronics is responsible for driving the vision and strategy of his/her product line(s) and for the management of the product throughout its lifecycle. He/she effectively translates business strategies into product strategies, roadmaps and product specifications that deliver against both our core customer benefits and our company strategic and financial goals. The Product Manager acts as the product champion, and is able to evangelize the product vision effectively to senior stakeholders and is able to independently drive to agreement on product requirements and directions.
The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker, is analytical, detail and results oriented with excellent problem-solving skills and a strong work ethic. He/she is a highly motivated self-starter. This individual is an evangelist for his/her product and has a deep understanding of his/her customers’ needs, the product and the competitive landscape. He/she has the confidence and knowledge to successfully own the product. He/she is an excellent communicator and builds strong cross functional relationships, internally and externally. This individual will be skilled in working across departments to collaborate with Business Managers, User Experience, Application Architects, Engineering Delivery Teams, Project Managers, QA, and Operations teams. His/Her product management experience and understanding of the software development cycle is essential to the successful development of requirements and products.

Product Strategy (~20%)

Develop and champion a product vision, product strategy and product roadmap in support of corporate goals and objectives.

Use customer & market research, customer and user feedback, customer usage and competitive analysis to identify new product opportunities and enhancements.

Work with multiple functions to build and evaluate business cases to support product investment decisions.

Present and clearly articulate product strategy to company leadership.

Product Discovery and Definition (~70%)

Own the product discovery process.

Collaborate with the business, user experience and engineering teams during discovery to assess value, usability and feasibility of product features.

Specify, prioritize and communicate high level and detailed product specifications using written specifications, business rules, flows and use cases as well as user experience generated deliverables such as prototypes, wireframes and design and copy documents.

Manage partner relationships, identifying necessary and/or desirable third-party features; evaluating and selecting vendors, negotiating agreements and contracts, and managing partnership integration

Manage third-party dependencies and secure necessary engagement / resource alignment for the creation of co-developed product features

Product Implementation, Deployment and Support (~10%)

Engage frequently with engineering and project management during implementation; be available to quickly answer questions that arise during implementation and to make scope tradeoff decisions.

Work closely with Marketing and/or the Business to launch products and ensure their adoption.

Coordinate post-launch activities to validate that the product works as designed and that operational processes dependant on the feature successfully complete acceptance testing

Manage the development of training materials and train users on new product features, support business users and manage close-loop feedback cycles to encompass customer/user comments and needs into better product experience.

Define, track and improve key product metrics

Experience:
? 5-7 years relevant professional experience required
? At least 3-5 years product/program management, product marketing, project management, business development, management consulting or equivalent experience desired but not required
? Subject matter or industry expertise preferred but not required unless specified in the role description.
? Online retail and/or marketing/strategy experience preferred but not required.

Preferred educational level:
? Graduate of an accredited 4-year college or university.
? MBA preferred
? BA/BS Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology or related fields a plus.
Physical Requirements:
? Moderate travel to Wal-Mart home office, stores or facilities and customer focus groups may be required based on product area
? Typical travel is between 3-5 days every other month