Position Purpose:

The Associate Product Manager is responsible for assessing market needs and working with cross-functional product teams to find the fastest way to achieve value around those needs. The role focuses on delivering business value to drive sales, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction through the production of quality products. Within their designated enterprise product line, Associate Product Managers work closely with teams of developers, designers, and business partners. They also manage progress tracking and financial monitoring for the product team.
The Associate Product Manager works in close partnership with more senior Product Management resources on the team.

Key Responsibilities:

• 20% Strategy & Planning:
• Listens to and knows the customers of the product; gains understanding of customer needs to help determine minimum viable product (MVP) as well as future needs
• Communicates direction and product priorities to the development team, other matrixed teams, and third-party partners
• Identifies goals, metrics, and analytics to determine product value; continually makes recommendations and refinements to the product backlog based on learnings
• Manages and grooms the product backlog; makes future decisions based on the value that will be delivered
• Monitors research as well as the competitive landscape to recommend the best solutions and ensure that products remain or become best in class
• 60% Delivery & Execution:
• Formulates, tests and refines assumptions and hypotheses through user research and testing
• Documents, reviews and ensures that all quality and change control standards are met
• Creates, prioritizes, and accepts user stories; incorporates them into release planning
• Makes product decisions that drive value on a daily basis
• Identifies and considers pros, cons, issues, obstacles, dependencies, and value associated with features and enhancements
• Participates in stand-ups, iteration planning sessions, product demos, and retrospectives
• Condenses complex technical concepts into non-technical language for stakeholders
• Updates Home Depot systems on a standard cadence (e.g., financials)
• Creates, documents, and posts product artifacts to centralized repositories
• Manages the purchase order and invoicing process with 3rd party vendors
• 20% People:
• Fosters collaboration with team members (Engineering, UX, etc.) to drive value and identify and resolve impediments
• Advocates for the end user and stakeholder by becoming associated with the product, empathizing with and understanding user needs
• Works with the product team to continuously assess progress, disseminate lessons learned, and understand next steps

Direct Manager/Direct Reports:

• Typically reports to the Product Management Manager or Sr. Manager.

Travel Requirements:

• Typically requires overnight travel less than 10% of the time.

Physical Requirements:

• Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.

Working Conditions:

• Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.

Job Responsibilities

Minimum Qualifications:

• Must be eighteen years of age or older.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States

Preferred Qualifications:

• 0-1 years of relevant work experience
• Exposure to modern software development product management practices and agile methodologies, specifically the extreme programming (XP) principles of paired programming, test driven development, and continuous deployment
• Experience working in a fast paced, fluid environment where priorities shift on a regular basis
• Experience communicating with and influencing functional and technical team members at all levels in the organization
• Familiarity in working as part of a collaborative, cross-functional, modern software design and development team
• Exposure to creating, prioritizing, and accepting user stories
• Experience conducting user research and testing to understand needs
• Exposure to identifying goals, metrics, and analytics to measure product value

Minimum Education:

• The knowledge, skills and abilities typically acquired through the completion of a high school diploma and/or GED.

Competencies:

• Collaborates: Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives
• Communicates Effectively: Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences
• Cultivates Innovation: Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful
• Customer Focus: Building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions
• Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relating openly and comfortably with diverse groups of people
• Nimble Learning: Actively learning through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder
• Organizational Savvy: Maneuvering comfortably through complex policy, process and people-related organizational dynamics
• Self-Development: Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels