Job Description
Our Purpose
At Xero, we’re here to help you supercharge your business. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we’re not only making life better for small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.
At Xero, we’re here to make running a business beautiful. By making small businesses more efficiently
every day, connecting them with big business technology and empowering a community behind them,
their potential is limitless. When that happens, we’re not only helping small businesses, we’ll
building a stronger economy that can change the world.
How You’ll Make Impact:
As a Lead Product Manager you will be responsible for establishing and maintaining excellence in
product management practices. You will have a deep understanding of the products and customers
(external or internal) within your portfolio. Your impact will be measured by your ability to improve
product practice and capability.
You’ll explain and promote a balance of ‘Best Practice’ and innovative product approaches to enab
teams to achieve world-class product management at Xero. You’ll contribute to the product strateg
being in place to enable successful implementation of roadmaps and effective delivery. You will coa
and train other product team members, and where required, step in to solve complex and protracted
product problems.
What You’ll Do:
Confidently execute core product management role responsibilities including identifying
customer problems and definitions solutions to test, developing and managing product
roadmaps or strategies, and developing product release strategies
Lead the development of networks across Xero to frame how products fit into Xero’s strategy,
objectives and future
Consistently review, monitor and interrogate the commercial & customer results of products,
areas and teams to inform product strategy and practice
Lead and manage a product or group of products across the end-to-end lifecycle (e.g. launch
through to sunset) to ensure maintenance and support throughout the life of the product
Drive decision-making across products and/or teams weighing up all inputs and information,
and working as a tie-breaker where there isn’t consensus
Connect products and their teams in various phases of development to ensure continuity and
cohesiveness, and alignment of products across Xero
Train, coach and upskill product team members to build product practice and embed best
practice across Xero
Develop and document, in consultation with product leadership, a suite of product practices
to standardize the best way to do product at Xero.
You will collaborate and consult effectively with the broader Portfolio leadership team
product delivery and strategy: Engineering, Product Operations and Product Strategy, Product
Marketing Management and Product Design.
Identify and roll out improvements to product practice and operations
Develop high-level strategy for the product management craft, shaping the execution product management within Xero
Support recruitment of new Xero’s as required, ensuring team members are high quality, fit Xero’s culture, and are onboarded effective
Works directly with 10-20 engineers and is responsible for signing off on an overall technic direction and architecture from the product perspective (ie, that tradeoffs are aligned with product direction).
What Success Looks Like:
You’ve supported the establishment of team OKRs and your work is contributing to team OKR
You deeply understand our customers and their problems across the breadth of the portfolio
The Product team has a set of rituals and are continually improving their delivery performance
You have strong relationships with your stakeholders who are engaged and have a thorough
understanding of your vision, strategy and roadmap
You are improving product team members skills, use of methods and tools across the portfolio
You continually refine the product vision and strategy for your product group / area
You are known as an advisor for product throughout the business; a respected voice in product management on best practice and improvements
You are consistently advocating for, and either iterating or embedding, Xero’s product framework, principles and practices
The teams impacted by you have a greater awareness of all the connecting dots and how to achieve seamless experiences
You step into and effectively manage or solve complex and difficult issues within product teams, when others can’
You demonstrate and amplify Xero’s Value
What You’ll Bring With You:
Creates new tools and processes for collecting and synthesizing feedback within and across products to shape Xero’s user research methodology
Defines “Big Bet” customer problems the market cannot articulate for itself to influence Xero’s approach to market and corporate strategy
Leads cross functional groups in defining and developing solutions to complex problems that span products and/or geographies
Leads the development of new discovery techniques for experimentation driving a culture of experimental design
Provides subject-matter expertise and thought leadership to Xero executives, industry or governing bodies for a given product / domain
Leads the development of new products and initiatives, in support of Xero’s strategies
Assesses global markets, technologies, disruptions and expert thought leadership to drive an innovation culture at Xero
Leads a culture of courageous prioritization across teams and geographies to improve Xero’s product decision-making capabilities
Refines and evolves Xero’s PM ways of working to continuously improve Xero approach to PM
Designs innovative release strategies and processes to reduce release lead time and impacts
Leads groups and coaches others in market definition, sizing and segmentation
Teaches others to develop product success criteria driven by an understanding of the product-market fit to ensure success criteria reflect market needs
Monitors and guides decision-making across the product group to ensure all teams balance customer, commercial and product implications in decision-making
Effectively facilitates ad hoc meetings or redirects meetings in-flight to manage difficult situations or stakeholders, and ensure meaningful outcomes
Mentors others in articulating a product narrative in a coherent, logical and simple way to improve product understanding and buy-in
Teaches and supports others to practice cross-functional collaboration creating links across teams, geographies and networks to drive improved product outcomes
Coaches others in new analytical approaches to generate insights and improve the effectiveness of product decisions
Teaches others to meaningfully translate information and insights for different stakeholders and audiences
Collaborates across functions to integrate information from a variety of sources and teams and generate meaningful insights
Extensive experience in enabling new and improved approaches to product practice
Demonstrated experience collaborating with diverse and senior stakeholder groups to realise customer / commercial outcomes
Strong track record of addressing customer needs through innovative use of technology
Effectively influenced outcomes at all levels in a variety of context
Extensive experience in product practice thought leadership, defining product roadmaps and long
term planning at a Portfolio / Sub-portfolio(s) level
Extensive experience in leading cross portfolio initiatives to deliver customer / business outcomes
Extensive experience in mentoring, supporting and coaching
Additional Information
Why Xero?
Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, private medical insurance, gym passes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.
Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience . If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.
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