Job Description
Over the last 10+ years, Ellevation Education has built a thriving business serving the administrators, teachers, and specialists who support English Learners (ELL) at public schools across the US. Today, over 1,500 school districts use our software to manage their EL programs. We are a successful, rapidly-growing business with a real mission—helping ELLs achieve their highest aspirations.
We are currently making a series of major investments in how our Flagship product supports the needs of our customers and their EL programs: we are developing deeper sophistication around the types of information we capture and make available to customers, re-imagining the ways our customers can collect and share information about their students and program, and evaluating a number of ways to extend our platform to solve more problems for our core user - the English Learning Administrator.
As the Product Manager, you will play a key role leading the agile team focused on Program Communication within our Flagship product line. You will work closely with Product, Design, Education, Engineering, and customer-facing peers to understand opportunities for the Flagship product to solve customer problems and drive Ellevation’s growth and impact. You will identify and weigh trade-offs around short- and long-term investments, and you will drive an experimental and iterative approach to delivery, aligned to our overall platform strategy.
At Ellevation, Product Managers are responsible for working cross-functionally to ensure success across the end-to-end product life cycle, from discovery to delivery, to ensure the work of the product organization has a positive impact on our customers and on our company. This involves deeply understanding the business and developing relationships across the organization. Importantly, this means creating opportunities for others to plug in to your work and ensuring stakeholders understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, and that you have factored their ideas and/or concerns into that thinking.
Product Culture
We are organized into small product teams that focus on key problems to solve in the context of a specific domain. We focus on outcomes over output. Our teams are empowered to research, prototype, and solicit user feedback to validate hypotheses. We engage users early and rapidly iterate so that the end result is a high-confidence, high-value product. We aim to foster an environment where we have the runway to experiment and learn from failure while tackling tricky challenges.
Our teams are cross-functional in that they are made up of members of Product (Product Manager, UX Designer) and members of Engineering. Product and Engineering work hand-in-hand together—we call ourselves DevPro, and in fact, we rarely meet in isolation.
Clear vision and strong strategy are core principles within the Product organization. We value product managers who fully own the long-term vision—knowing where we are going and importantly why it matters for our customers. As strategy is meant to evolve, you will need to constantly identify increments, spot and mitigate risks, and position your team to meet the needs of the business on the way there.
We celebrate being accountable to outcomes, which means signing up to pursue that vision by knocking down obstacles that get in the way. This looks like conducting experiments which throw off learnings, adjusting strategy based on those learnings, and delivering products to end-users that change behavior and drive real value for the business.
Impact
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1 month - Build a clear picture of the key challenges and strategic context facing Ellevation with a particular eye on Program Communication within our Flagship product and key in-progress initiatives. Develop rapport with key stakeholders and team members.
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3 months - Begin to shape strategic decisions around the Program Communication domain. Work alongside design and engineering to prioritize development of new increments that add value to our platform. Set ambitious learning objectives that drive the pace and quality of experiments, decisions, and delivery on the team. Establish influential, high-trust relationships across the organization.
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6 months - Ensure team is delivering high-impact business results. Work with Flagship Leadership to define a multi-year approach to product investments that position the team to make significant progress towards enhancing Program Communication in support of our short- and long-term growth and impact goals. Continue to grow influence across the organization.
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12 months - Take full ownership over the domain. Drive key outcomes against our business goals and support the transformation of our Flagship Product to ensure Ellevation is in a position to build towards our 5 year goal of serving 70% of the EL’s nationwide.
About You:
- You have 4-6+ years of relevant experience, including ideally 2+ years of direct product management experience
- You have experience working on a Platform SaaS product
- You have both a strong orientation to user experience and front-end application design as well as a deep interest in systems and data
- You have experience and/or a deep interest in English Learners and the K12 education sector
- You have a strong track record of driving business outcomes, managing trade offs, and delivering products incrementally in an agile environment
- You are highly accountable for your work; you own problems from beginning to end with urgency
- You are experimental and curious; you love to test ideas, learn quickly, fail fast, and iterate
- You demonstrate an eagerness to learn from others
Travel Expectations:
- Remote employees for this role will be expected to travel about 10 times per year to the Boston office or company off sites.
Closing:
Are you passionate about growth and eager to learn? Do you possess a drive to excel and make a difference? Ellevation values diversity, creativity, and a hunger for new perspectives. While our job postings outline preferred qualifications, we believe that talent comes in various forms. If you're motivated, adaptable, and ready to contribute, we encourage you to apply. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and experiences, recognizing that unique skills and fresh outlooks are invaluable assets to our team. Don't let a checklist of requirements deter you – take the leap, and let's explore the possibilities together!
About Us:
At Ellevation, we develop world-class software to help educators serve the fastest growing population of K-12 students: English Learners (ELs). Ellevation helps school districts transform their Multilingual Learner programs and ensure all students can achieve their highest aspirations. Our product suite includes a best-in-class data and instructional planning platform, resources to build teacher capacity, and student-facing programs to teach academic language.
We are a fast-growing, mission-driven technology company partnering with over 1,500 school districts and more than 2 million current and former English Learners. Over the next five years, we plan to double the number of ELs we serve and drive measurable outcomes for students. Ellevation merged with Curriculum Associates in 2021 to accelerate impact for Multilingual Learners. Our company continues to operate independently and is well-capitalized to support our ambitious social and financial objectives.
Why Ellevation?
In addition to our great benefits and competitive salaries, here are some things that make us unique:
+ Mission-driven organization where team members are empowered to make a significant impact
+ Opportunities to join DEIB-focused groups and support building a culture of belonging
+ Professional development and growth opportunities
+ Company and team offsites in various cities across the United States
+ Collaborative workspace in the heart of Boston - a stone's throw from many central T stops (Downtown Crossing, Government Center, and Aquarium). Free snacks, beverages, and local organic fruit provided
+ Remote and in-person engagement opportunities, including happy hours, themed events, and competitions
+ Remote and in-person wellness programming to support team’s mental and physical wellbeing
Here at Ellevation, we champion diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. We strive to build a team that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values a range of ideas and opinions.
We believe in building a culture where productivity can flourish, one that is empathetic, respectful, and inclusive. We are proud to have been recognized in prior years as “Best Tech Workplace for Diversity” by the Timmy Awards for investing in training around inclusive behaviors, microaggressions, unconscious bias, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and feedback across the company. We are encouraged by our progress, but there’s more work to be done.
Benefits – Benefits eligible employees (and qualifying dependents) are covered by medical, dental, vision, and basic life insurance. Employees can enroll in our company's 401(k) retirement plan and receive an employer match up to 50% on the first 7% of your contribution, with pre-tax and Roth options. Employees have access to flexible paid time off for vacations, sick and disability policy, additional 10 paid company holidays, 2 floating holidays and a winter office closure between Christmas and New Year's. In addition, we provide a generous parental leave benefit, back-up childcare or eldercare, and a variety of other perks to support the health and well-being of our employees.
Additional Information: Ellevation operates under Curriculum Associates, LLC, an Equal Opportunity Employer. Curriculum Associates, LLC will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, or any other category protected by law. Curriculum Associates, LLC will grant employment, without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, or any other category protected by law. Such action shall include, but not be limited to, the following: employment, upgrading, demotion, transfer, recruitment or recruitment advertising, layoff or termination, rates of pay or other forms of compensation.
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