Product Manager

At Kia, we’re creating award-winning products and redefining what value means in the automotive industry. It takes a special group of individuals to do what we do, and we do it together. Our culture is fast-paced, collaborative, and innovative. Our people thrive on thinking differently and challenging the status quo. We are creating something special here, a culture of learning and opportunity, where you can help Kia achieve big things and most importantly, feel passionate and connected to your work every day.

Kia provides team members with competitive benefits including premium paid medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependents, 401(k) plan matching of 100% up to 6% of the salary deferral, and paid time off. Kia also offers company lease and purchase programs, company-wide holiday shutdown, paid volunteer hours, and premium lifestyle amenities at our corporate campus in Irvine, California.

Status

Exempt

Summary

Connected experience is key to overall vehicle ownership experience. As Kia gears towards providing a world class connected solution, the Product Manager will play a key role in driving the product engagement with the customers and also ensure our offering is competitive and centered towards a personalized customer experience. The Connected Car Product Manager will support the development of product strategies to increase engagement with the Kia brand and manage operations in the new business areas of connected car products and services. The position is on Kia’s Connected Car and Mobility Team reporting to a Sr. Product Manager. 

This role will support various Connected Car initiatives and be responsible for duties such as developing product strategies; evaluating and developing new partner collaborations; defining product pricing; driving customer research for product feedback and satisfaction assessment;  conducting competition benchmarking; and identifying opportunities to build and improve new and existing connected car products and services.

This role may also be responsible for additional operational activities such as engaging with other departments and ensuring quality concerns and customer issues are address. Engagements with other departments may include working with the Marketing team for product marketing; developing product training material for Sales and Training teams, and working with the Finance Team for budgeting matters. Quality management may include monitoring of issues and incidents to ensure they are addressed within defined SLAs; developing mid and long range resolution plans, and ensuring quality standards (internal and industry standards) are met. 
 

Major Responsibilities

1st Priority - 20%

•  Manage new services ideation, customer research, discussion with HQ, vendors, competition benchmarking, and other sources. Translate customer problems into new connected car products, features, and services. 
• Support product and market fitment assessments and develop innovative proposals including business case, implementation cost, and time estimate.
• Successfully seek approvals from management to translate the proposal into a project.

2nd Priority - 15%

• Manage feature/service launches from concept to launch and post-launch support. 
• Develop the product concept and write business requirements for the engineering team. Identify and prioritize product features that will deliver the most value to customers. Prioritize and deprioritize features as needed to ensure timely and high-quality product releases.
• Collaborate with engineering, build and iterate new capabilities to deliver quality products and experiences.
• Serve as the key point of contact for developers, and user acceptance testing (UAT) resources to ensure proper implementation of requirements.
• Work closely with cross-functional partners including Marketing, Sales & Service Operations, Customer Care, and Legal. Present the business goals, build consensus and gain support on the product, sales strategy, legal compliance, and post launch customer support.

3rd Priority - 10%

• Solve complex business problems, support data-driven decision-making by developing business and financial models using Excel, and perform various analyses like revenue forecasting, cost-benefit analysis, ROI, and other ad hoc analyses.
• Monitor and report on KPIs and the effectiveness of marketing initiatives to the management team and use data to create future marketing strategies.

4th Priority - 15%

• Customer & Program risk management from quality standpoint. Develop program health KPIs and ensure the compliance with partners and affiliates 
• Periodically collect product and service usage data from all the different sources. Transla