Senior Program Manager - Discovery (Academy)

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

About the Role:

The Senior Program Manager - Discovery supports the Certificate team to define and bring high-impact micro-credential offerings to market, ensuring they align with the demand from both employers and prospective students. This role blends academic product strategy with program management, focusing on identifying the best opportunities to launch. The Senior Program Manager - Discovery will engage in activities such as discovery, market research, customer insights, data analysis, and needs-based requirements gathering, all with the goal of meeting the evolving needs of learners and employers.

As a certificate SME and research collaborator, the Senior Program Manager - Discovery will develop business cases for programs that align with WGU Academy’s mission and vision, while also ensuring strong market relevance and positive student outcomes.   This includes managing complex research and strategy projects across multiple groups.

This position also manages the pre-launch phase of the academic product cycle, which includes developing program strategy, needs assessment, cross functional collaboration, and leading the launch of new certificate programs. Success will be measured by achieving product-market fit and uncovering pockets of demand, along with shared accountability for program quality and impact.

Location: This position requires you to work in office 4 days per week at the WGU headquarters 4001 South 700 East Salt Lake City, UT 84107

What You’ll Do:

Product Discovery:

• Build the business case for certificate offerings, in partnership with shared service teams such as marketing, research and analytics, design, business development, college partners and others.
• Partner across functional teams to ensure that the Voice of the Customer (learners and organizations) is known and incorporated in offering concepts.
• Collaborate with Research Team to design and conduct qualitative and quantitative studies, including user interviews, surveys, and focus groups targeting prospective and current learners.
• Collaborate on research plans for product feedback.  Participate in both B-B and B-C research to ensure empathy for end users and purchasing organizations.
• Manage certificate academic product roadmap and backlog of potential future program ideas in partnership with Academy and college stakeholders.
• Identify target audiences (buyers and users) and develop appropriate go-to-market strategies for new certificate offerings.
• Ideation and Concept Development: Facilitate brainstorming sessions and workshops to generate innovative product ideas based on user research.
• Continuous Improvement: Stay up-to-date with the latest research methodologies and tools to continuously improve our product discovery processes.
• Support the Manager, Product Discovery with additional side projects and new initiatives.
• Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

Certificate Launch

• Conduct essential product concept research, including (but not limited to) market sizing, competitive analysis, enrollment estimates, pricing models, and strategic insights to inform offerings’ design. 
• Engage cross-functional teams throughout product concept and charter creation (to ensure completion of product design, marketing, finance, GTM, enrollment, etc.).
• Regularly engage with regional sales leaders and strategic partnership managers to understand market needs, identify potential organizational buyers, conduct B2B research, pilot offerings, and engage with potential partners as SME.
• Ensure product launch and planning documents are well documented, detailed, and reflect relevant market insights to support GTM strategies.
• Partner to support proper pre-launch field training and offering  
• Partner with Product Launch and Continuous Improvement teams to ensure successful, on-time launch.
• Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities You’ll Need to be Successful: