Product Operations Manager, Home Services Expert

About the Product Operations Team

The Product Operations team provides contextual feedback across Thumbtack to understand how we can better attract, engage, and retain professionals and customers on the Thumbtack platform. This fast-paced team uses a combination of proactive outreach and user-driven approaches to collect, track, prioritize, and size user feedback and bugs to meet our core objective of improving user sentiment and engagement.

About the Role

We are currently seeking a Product Operations Manager (POM) to partner cross functionally in developing a world-class, consumer-facing home maintenance recommendation engine. Using a blend of user feedback, user sentiment, and product data, POMs focus on identifying data-backed bright spots and pain points within the product and then work cross-functionally to track, prioritize, size, and ultimately adapt based on their findings. A blend of analyst and consultant, POMs leverage both quantitative and qualitative data to inform and influence product, engineering, and marketing roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Home services expert: In-house expert about day-to-day needs of homeowners and what home maintenance, home fixes, and home improvement projects homeowners could and should accomplish.

• Understand opportunities deeply. Able to collect, analyze, and report on quantitative and qualitative user feedback in a way that uncovers the root causes of difficult problems. Does not focus only on data itself, but also strategically thinks about how topics fit into various company, department, and team level goals.

• Influence the roadmap. Learn the complex Thumbtack ecosystem and influence cross functional partners to prioritize and focus on projects that address user feedback and ultimately improve user sentiment.

• Collaborate. Understands how Thumbtack and its internal teams work and applies organizational savvy to become a trusted advisor across multiple disciplines. Able to reliably navigate conflict by balancing the interests of various stakeholder requirements, expectations, and needs with what’s ultimately best for the company.

• Clearly Communicate. Takes complex problems and communicates them simply and clearly. Able to tailor communication based on the audience and situation. Keeps others informed as projects are scoped, sized, and executed.

• Amplify the user’s voice. Strong decision maker that acts as the knowledge hub for user sentiment/feedback/bugs, perpetually informed and ready to answer questions on in-flight work, launches, and known issues for all cross functional teams. Relies on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment when making decisions.
  
  
• Citizenship. Trusted as an informal leader and model of authenticity in both mistakes and successes. Models and works with a high sense of emotional intelligence and actively advocates for the success of others. Takes full ownership for their personal development and focuses on continuous self improvement while also contributing to the growth of team members, when appropriate.

Must-Have Qualifications 

If you don't think you meet all of the criteria below but still are interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box, and we're looking for someone excited to join the team.

• 4+ years’ experience working in product management, product marketing, product operations, product analytics, program management, or consulting; you understand the fundamentals of delivering products that create value for users
• 2+ years’ direct working or deep indirect experience in the home services industry
• Proficiency in collecting, accessing, and manipulating both quantitative data (i.e. product data and survey data) and qualitative data (i.e. focus group, round table, 1:1 interviews); you have beginner/intermediate skills in managing data and use it to answer questions (i.e. SQL, Excel, Stata, R, Python, etc) and, at a minimum, can expertly translate business needs into technical requirements for dedicated analysts/data scientists/engineers
• Strong interpersonal skills; you are an active listener who focuses on team work, but is also independently self-motivated, responsible, and dependable
• Strong influencing skills; you can build positive relationships with a variety of internal stakeholders and tell the user story in a compelling way
• Curiosity; you help uncover the “why,” especially on points of potentially high impact
• User empathy; you understand that the most beautiful products in the world fail if they don’t solve real problems for their users

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• MBA or advanced degree
• 1+ year experience working at a company with a two-sided marketplace
• 1+ year using predictive modeling

Thumbtack is a virtual-first company, meaning you can live and work from any one of our approved locations across the United States, Ontario or the Philippines. When it is safe to gather, we will begin to host in-person events on a regular basis. Remote employees will be expected to travel occasionally for these events to a Thumbtack library or offsite team-building location. In cities with 5+ employees, we are establishing local communities, where employees can gather for local events. Additionally, employees in the San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Toronto and Manila areas will have opt-in access to communal workspace at one of our Thumbtack libraries. We always prioritize the health and safety of our employees. Currently, participation in these events and Thumbtack library use are optional. Both require employees to be fully vaccinated.

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