[Hiring] Product Strategist @a8f15de2-de3f-4781-94af-42faedd4947b

Role Description

The Product Strategist will work with DMI business units to understand the business units’ operations in order to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and develop tools and products for employees, clients, and borrowers. This is not a standard product management role with a product and backlog to manage. Rather, the product strategist will focus on product discovery and organizational transformation, which may lead to process changes, procurements, or standing up new product teams.

Essential Functions and Duties

• Discovery
  • Observe, research, and document department processes, procedures and tools.
  • Understand the department’s purpose and mission to identify success metrics and gather baseline metrics.
  • Identify areas where new or improved processes and products will improve efficiency or user experience.
• Measurement
  • Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for the business unit.
  • Build the capability to measure KPIs and take baseline measurements.
  • Measure the success of product initiatives against the KPI benchmarks, adjusting and adding measurements based on experimentation and learning.
• Strategy & Prioritization
  • Develop a high-level vision for technology transformation and process improvements based on discovery research.
  • In collaboration with the business unit, build a prioritized roadmap with a sequence of initiatives for technology and process improvements that incrementally build toward the high-level vision.
  • Do build vs buy analysis to determine which tools should be built in-house and which should be purchased from vendors.
• Execution
  • Develop and document requirements for new products and tools.
  • Do marketing research to select products and vendors that best meet DMI’s needs for a reasonable cost and partner with legal and compliance to onboard vendors.
  • Partner with existing product teams or stand up new product teams to build tools and products where appropriate.
  • Document new processes and partner closely with the business unit to adopt new processes. Adapt processes based on feedback and learnings.
• Transformation
  • Build credibility and strong partnerships with business units.
  • Develop adoption strategies for new products and processes.
  • Own transformation and adoption outcomes and see adoption and transformation plans through.
  • Recommend new skills needed on teams or org structures to business unit and DMI leadership as appropriate.
  • Successfully complete annual regulatory compliance training.
  • Perform other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in product management, strategy, or UX research roles.
• Experience with product discovery research.
• Experience with technology transformation and modernization.
• Comfort with ambiguity.
• The ability to look beyond what users and clients say they need to identify unarticulated pain points and problems.
• Demonstrated experience in identifying user needs and implementing solutions that measurably meet those needs.
• Demonstrated experience identifying metrics and building the capacity to meaningfully measure success.
• Enjoy creating documentation and infographics that clarify problems and illustrate solutions that are legible to stakeholders of all levels of comfort with technology.
• A willingness to drive strategy from a high-level vision down into the weeds of implementation and adoption.
• Comfort communicating with both senior leadership and individual users.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in highly regulated industries, especially financial services or mortgages.
• Experience with accounting or financial systems, or with consumer financial services.
• Experience with ethnographic user research and/or service design.
• Experience working in established organizations with long tenure employees.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, Vision, Wellness, Flexible Spending Account, Employee Assistance Program and more.
• Employer paid Life Insurance, Short Term Disability, and Long-Term Disability.
• 401 (K) Plan with company match.
• Paid Vacation, Sick, Personal and Holidays.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The employee must be comfortable in either an on-site office setting, or a quiet, designated work from home space that is free from distractions and noise. The employee is regularly required to communicate (give/receive) information through multiple methods of communication with clear understanding from others. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.

The employee must be able to remain in a stationary position and/or move about the organization or remote office. The employee is frequently required to stand or walk (or otherwise move through the organization); sit; use hands to type, write, handle, or feel and reach. May occasionally climb or balance; stoop, kneel, or crouch; or lift and/or move up to 25 lbs. Employees may be required to type and utilize a computer for long periods of time.

The employee may be required to frequently operate a standard variety of office equipment including computers, calculators, copy machines, computer, printers and phones. The noise level, if working on-site, is usually moderate and typical of an office environment.

In accordance with applicable disability laws, Dovenmuehle works with applicants and employees to make reasonable accommodations to the job or work environment when doing so will enable an employee with a qualified disability to satisfactorily perform the essential functions of the job.