Product Manager (Contractor)

Position Summary

Modern Campus is seeking a Contractor Product Manager to join our Lifelong Learning product team.

In this role, you will own key areas of our lifelong learning platform, partnering closely with Engineering, UX, Customer Success, Services, and Go-to-Market teams to deliver solutions that improve the learner experience, increase registrations, and drive operational efficiency for higher education institutions.

You will serve as the Product Owner for Agile development teams while also contributing to product strategy, roadmap planning, customer discovery, and commercial outcomes. This position sits at the intersection of customer needs, business objectives, market opportunity, and technical execution.

The ideal candidate is customer-obsessed, data-informed, commercially minded, and excited about applying emerging technologies, including AI, to solve meaningful challenges within higher education.

What You'll Do

Product Strategy & Roadmap

• Own the strategy, roadmap, priorities, and outcomes for an assigned product area.
• Translate customer needs, business objectives, market trends, competitive intelligence, and product insights into product opportunities.
• Identify opportunities to improve customer value, product adoption, retention, expansion, revenue growth, and operational efficiency.
• Develop business cases and recommendations that balance customer impact, market opportunity, investment, and delivery complexity.

Product Discovery & Innovation

• Conduct customer discovery through interviews, user research, workflow analysis, experimentation, and data analysis.
• Validate problems and solutions using qualitative and quantitative insights.
• Evaluate and champion opportunities to leverage AI, automation, and emerging technologies to improve customer outcomes.
• Stay informed on industry trends and evolving learner needs within higher education and professional learning.

Product Delivery & Execution

• Define, maintain, and prioritize the product backlog to ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
• Create and manage product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and release plans.
• Partner closely with Engineering and UX teams to deliver intuitive, scalable, secure, and high-quality solutions.
• Participate actively in Agile ceremonies and support development teams throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Balance competing priorities while making thoughtful, data-informed decisions.

Product Performance & Growth

• Define product goals, KPIs, success metrics, and adoption targets.
• Monitor product performance and continuously optimize based on customer feedback and business results.
• Partner with Customer Success, Services, Support, and Sales teams to identify adoption barriers and improve the end-to-end customer experience.
• Support pricing, packaging, positioning, and go-to-market planning initiatives.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as the voice of the customer and subject matter expert for assigned product areas.
• Communicate product direction, trade-offs, risks, and outcomes to stakeholders across the organization.
• Drive alignment across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Executive Leadership teams.
• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, experimentation, and accountability.

What You'll Bring

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 7-10+ years of experience in Product Management, Product Ownership, Business Analysis, SaaS product development, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience managing products, features, or complex capabilities from discovery through launch and ongoing optimization.
• Experience working in Agile product development environments.
• Strong customer discovery, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and prioritization skills.
• Ability to connect customer and market needs to measurable business outcomes.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive outcomes without direct authority.
• Experience making strategic trade-off decisions in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated interest in AI, automation, analytics, and emerging technologies.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in higher education technology, EdTech, enterprise SaaS, or other complex B2B software environments.
• Experience launching, managing, or enhancing AI-powered products and features.
• Knowledge of product analytics tools and experimentation methodologies.
• Experience using customer feedback, market research, and product usage data to guide decision-making.
• Familiarity with product-led growth strategies, customer adoption programs, and customer enablement initiatives.
• Understanding of responsible AI principles, accessibility standards, privacy regulations, and data security best practices.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or comparable Agile/Product Management certification.
• Experience supporting lifelong learning, workforce development, continuing education, professional education, or learner engagement solutions.

Core Competencies

• Strategic Thinking and Product Vision
• Customer Obsession and User Advocacy
• Product Discovery and Innovation
• Data-Driven Decision Making
• Commercial and Business Acumen
• AI and Emerging Technology Fluency
• Prioritization and Product Judgment
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Communication and Influence
• Change Management and Adaptability
• Ownership and Accountability
• Continuous Learning and Growth Mindset

Why Join Modern Campus?

At Modern Campus, we're transforming how higher education institutions engage learners throughout the entire student lifecycle. We believe meaningful growth comes from understanding our customers, connecting their challenges to the right solutions, and creating experiences that deliver measurable value.

This role offers an opportunity to shape the future of demand generation at Modern Campus, building innovative, data-driven marketing strategies that strengthen customer engagement, accelerate growth, and connect marketing impact to business outcomes.