Product Development Manager

About Us:

Based in Berwyn PA, FIDx is an innovative digital platform bringing advisors, firms, and the retirement products they want together through our industry-changing technology. The digital space demands a forward-thinking and adaptive workplace. At FIDx, we are creating opportunities – both for our clients and our employees.

About the Opportunity:

The Product Manager will play a crucial role in ensuring our Advisor firms’ satisfaction with the Insurance Exchange platform by delivering valuable and innovative capabilities that meet operational requirements and drive business growth. You will act as a bridge between our clients, multiple internal teams (e.g., Implementations, Client Engagement, Platform Support and Operations) and the Development team, ensuring that client feedback and requirements are effectively translated into actionable product features and improvements. You will work closely with other departments to develop product capabilities that are aligned with the greater organization's strategic objectives. This role is crucial in driving client satisfaction and retention, as well as contributing to the success and growth of the company. The Product Manager serves as a key link between clients and product development, ensuring that customer needs are at the forefront of product decision-making.

Responsibilities

Client Needs Assessment:

• Collaborate closely with onboarding clients, established clients, and internal teams to identify opportunities for product improvements that will enable client business growth.
• Maintain awareness of general product strategy for Insurance Exchange, market needs and trends, and provide input to strategic roadmap content and sequencing.
• Meet with onboarding and established clients to understand their business objectives, challenges, and pain points. Ask provocative questions to understand how requested features/functionality improves their workflow and/or improves their experience and the relative business impact of bugs or issues.
• Conduct thorough needs assessments to identify areas where product enhancements can provide value for one or multiple clients.

Platform Support:

• Collaborate closely with the Platform Support team to resolve client issues in real time, help with deeper technical triage, and identify bugs in product code.
• Regularly assess trends in the defect queue and implement creative solutions that act as preventative measures for the trending defects.

Software Development Lifecycle:

• Identify business value of product enhancements and help set product strategy with internal stakeholders.
• Gather and document business requirements. Work closely with onboarding and established clients, internal team members, and other stakeholders to gather detailed product requirements and document them in a clear and concise manner.
• Ensure the Development team has a comprehensive understanding of client needs, business context, and timing requirements for delivery.
• Assist in definition of technical requirements. Collaborate with technical teams in product design sessions. Help refine scope and define backlog items.
• Write user stories and define acceptance testing criteria.
• Participate in agile development processes, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, and sprint reviews.
• Facilitate User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Coordinate with onboarding and established clients to ensure that the new product features & functionality meet their expectations and requirements.
• Collect user feedback and work with the development team to promptly remediate identified issues.
• Execute platform launch and training. Support internal teams during platform launches, providing them with necessary information, training, and documentation regarding new platform capabilities. Ensure the teams are well-equipped to support clients in adopting the new features and achieve their desired outcomes.
• Continually assess platform benefits and utilization. Collaborate with internal teams to solicit, gather and analyze client feedback related to their day-to-day use of Insurance Exchange. Identify recurring themes and opportunities for improvement and use this information to inform future product releases.
• Accountable for platform outcomes. Ensure that new features and enhancements meet business objectives. Define how to measure positive or negative use case impact.

Product Roadmap:

• Develop, maintain and manage a product roadmap.
• Align the product roadmap with both the company's strategic goals and objectives and the specific requirements of individual clients.
• Utilize data-driven decision-making processes to prioritize product features and enhancements taking into account firm objectives, client feedback, market trends, business impact, and resource constraints.
• Work collaboratively with Product Development team and internal stakeholders to prioritize development requests and sequence work.

Qualifications

• Minimum of two years of experience with variable and fixed annuity products.
• Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, computer science, or a related field (or equivalent work experience).
• Proven experience (3-5 years) as a Product Manager or similar role, preferably in a client-facing or customer success capacity.
• Strong understanding of Agile and/or other software development methodologies.
• Strong analytical, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Process orientation and attention to detail.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Strong intrapersonal skills and ability to form collegial, collaborative working relationships with colleagues and clients.
• Enthusiasm for data, data analysis and data-driven applications and interfaces.
• Strong organizational skills to manage multiple priorities and deadlines.
• Adaptability, flexibility, ability to work in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment.
• Customer-focused mindset with a passion for delivering exceptional client experiences.
• Familiarity with project management tools and product management software is a plus.

Additional Requirements

• Travel and flexible working hours may be required
• Candidate must be self-motivated, adaptable and show initiative
• Strong Excel, Word, and Power Point skills required. Lucid or Visio skills preferred.
• Candidate must be self-assured and react well within critical deadline situations

Position Type and Expected Hours of Work

The work schedule for this position will be primarily Monday - Friday during typical business hours; however, based on the operational needs of this rapidly growing company, some work outside of typical business hours may be required. Working extended business hours or weekends will be required on occasion to support code deployments and on-boarding project schedule and deadlines.

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required in connection with this position. This position is classified as Exempt and not eligible for overtime pay.

FIDx is an equal opportunity employer and makes hiring decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are not able to sponsor Visas of any kind at this time.