Sr. Data Product Manager

About Niche

Niche is the leader in school search. Our mission is to make researching and enrolling in schools easy, transparent, and free. With in-depth profiles on every school and college in America, 140 million reviews and ratings, and powerful search tools, we help millions of people find the right school for them. We also help thousands of schools recruit more best-fit students, by highlighting what makes them great and making it easier to visit and apply.

Niche is all about finding where you belong, and that mission inspires how we operate every day. We want Niche to be a place where people truly enjoy working and can thrive professionally.

About The Role

We are looking for a highly experienced and strategic-minded individual to join the team as the Senior Data Product Manager.  Areas of focus for this role could include products to prove ROI to customers, Niche’s grades and rankings products, and SaaS market intelligence products for higher ed customers. Leveraging Niche’s wealth of proprietary data,  you will help shape the future of our data products and capabilities, primarily in the real estate and education space, ensuring that they align with the company's overall vision and deliver maximum business impact while enhancing the customer experience. As an early hire in this function, you will have the opportunity to help shape the foundation for data product management within our organization. You will collaborate closely with key stakeholders across various teams, translating their needs into clear requirements, detailed roadmaps, and, most importantly, driving successful product implementation and timely delivery. The ideal candidate is a seasoned data product manager with a strong grasp of data science, ML, and analytics, and a proven track record of managing several multi-year product roadmaps simultaneously. If you are passionate about building products and capabilities that enable a culture of test-and-learn and a culture of data-driven decision-making, then this could be a great role for you.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Strategic Vision: Develop a comprehensive understanding of the company's business goals and priorities, and use that insight to contribute to a strategic vision for data products and capabilities. 
• Roadmap Development: Prioritize and create a roadmap for data products and capabilities, ensuring they offer the maximum value proposition to the business. This involves setting clear priorities, defining milestones, and continuously assessing the roadmap's alignment with evolving business needs.
• Go To Market:  Ability to work cross-functionally with teams to build the case for and effectively plan the launch of new products. 
• User Advocacy: Be the strongest advocate for our users and stakeholders. Continuously listen to user feedback, and cultivate a deep understanding of their experiences, needs, pain points, and motivations. Use this insight to inform product decisions and improvements.
• User Personas: Develop a thorough understanding of the various user personas who will be utilizing our data products and capabilities. This includes identifying their unique requirements, challenges, and preferences.
• Collaboration and Communication: Collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, analysts, engineers, designers, technical project managers (TPMs), and other product managers. Translate requirements between these groups and ensure alignment with the product vision.
• Conflict Resolution: Handle conflicts and differing opinions effectively by creating alignment and visibility across various teams and departments. Promote a harmonious and cooperative work environment while driving product goals.
• Data-Driven Approach: Embrace a data-driven mindset and approach. Clearly define key performance indicators (KPIs) and success metrics for our data products. Ensure that necessary instrumentation is in place to measure and validate the success and impact of our work, making data-informed decisions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a bridge between the data team and other business units. Engage with key stakeholders to understand their needs and work collaboratively to deliver solutions that meet their expectations and enhance their operations.

What You Will Do

During the First Month:

• Learn about Niche by meeting with various team members to learn more about our company through our Onboarding meetings
• Collaborate with various team members to learn about the company
• Work with members of th