What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Product Manager-Restaurant & Team Member Products position at Inspire Brands?
As a Senior Product Manager, Restaurant & Team Member Products, you will lead the strategy, discovery, and execution of a restaurant value stream and the ecosystem of capabilities that support it. This role is responsible for identifying opportunities, defining strategy, prioritizing investments, and delivering outcomes that improve restaurant operations, team member experiences, and business performance across Inspire Brands.
Unlike traditional product management roles that focus on a single application or product, this position owns a business capability or value stream and is accountable for the outcomes it delivers. Your scope may include internally developed solutions, third-party platforms, integrations, operational workflows, data, and emerging technologies that collectively enable restaurant operations.
Working closely with Operations, Brand partners, Engineering, Product Design, PMO, Architecture, Data & Analytics, Security, and external vendors, you will define vision, establish outcome-based roadmaps, align stakeholders around priorities, and ensure investments create measurable value. Success in this role requires a balance of strategic thinking, customer empathy, operational understanding, technical acumen, and disciplined execution.
Customer Obsession & Product Thinking: Demonstrates a deep commitment to understanding operators, franchisees, and restaurant team members. Uses evidence, discovery, and experimentation to identify opportunities and validate solutions. Focuses on solving customer problems and achieving measurable outcomes rather than simply delivering features.
Responsibilities
Own a Restaurant Value Stream
Serve as the product leader for a defined restaurant business capability or value stream. Develop a deep understanding of operational workflows, customer needs, pain points, opportunities, and strategic objectives. Act as the primary point of accountability for the outcomes, health, and evolution of the value stream.
Define Strategy and Roadmaps
Establish a clear vision and outcome-based roadmap that aligns business objectives, customer needs, operational priorities, and technical capabilities. Continuously evaluate investment opportunities and make prioritization decisions based on value, risk, effort, and strategic alignment.
Identify Investment Opportunities and Build Business Cases
Proactively identify value opportunities across the assigned value stream and translate the strongest opportunities into compelling business cases for funding consideration. Lead the development of investment narratives that clearly define the opportunity, customer and business value, financial and operational impact, cost and effort assumptions, risks, dependencies, success metrics, and recommended sequencing.
Lead Product Discovery
Partner with restaurant operators, franchisees, team members, and stakeholders to uncover problems, validate opportunities, and identify meaningful solutions. Leverage restaurant visits, observation, research, customer feedback, process analysis, and data to inform decision-making and guide investment priorities.
Manage a Capability Ecosystem
Evaluate, enhance, and optimize the collection of solutions that support your value stream, including internally developed applications, third-party platforms, integrations, workflows, and vendor partnerships. Make recommendations regarding build, buy, integrate, optimize, or retire decisions based on business value and long-term strategy.
Drive Cross-Functional Execution
Collaborate closely with Engineering, Product Design, Architecture, Security, Data & Analytics, PMO, Operations, Brand teams, and external partners to deliver high-quality solutions. Build alignment, navigate competing priorities, and ensure successful execution across a complex stakeholder landscape.
Define and Measure Outcomes
Establish KPIs and success metrics that measure customer value, operational performance, adoption, and business impact. Monitor results, identify opportunities for improvement, and drive continuous optimization based on data and feedback.
Lead Through Influence
Influence decision-making across business and technology teams without formal authority. Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels, facilitate tradeoff discussions, and build alignment around priorities and strategic direction.
Education and Experience Qualifications
Minimum
Bachelor's Degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
Preferred
Bachelor's or Graduate Degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline.
Experience
5 years of product management experience leading software, technology, or operational products and capabilities.
Experience owning product strategy, roadmaps, prioritization, and delivery from concept through implementation and optimization.
Demonstrated success partnering with both business and technology teams to achieve measurable business outcomes.
Experience operating in Agile product development environments.
Strong understanding of customer discovery, requirements development, experimentation, and outcome measurement.
Experience evaluating and managing third-party technology solutions and vendor relationships preferred.
Experience within restaurant, hospitality, retail, workforce management, or other multi-unit operational environments preferred.
Proven ability to influence stakeholders and drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Strong understanding of product management principles, practices, frameworks, and methodologies.
Deep knowledge of the end-to-end product lifecycle including opportunity identification, discovery, validation, delivery, launch, adoption, measurement, and optimization.
Understanding of restaurant operations and the systems, processes, and workflows that support restaurant team members and operators is preferred but not required.
Strong analytical capabilities and ability to leverage qualitative and quantitative data to inform decisions.
Ability to identify, size, and communicate value opportunities and construct compelling business cases that support funding and prioritization decisions.
Ability to identify root causes, frame problems effectively, and develop well-reasoned recommendations.
Technical fluency and ability to understand integrations, system architecture, APIs, technical constraints, and tradeoffs.
Experience defining measurable outcomes and KPIs.
Ability to translate customer needs, business objectives, and technical requirements into clear, concise, actionable product requirements.
Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
Ability to influence and align stakeholders across organizational boundaries.
Strong prioritization, planning, negotiation, and organizational skills.
Ability to thrive in ambiguity and adapt quickly to changing business priorities.
Passion for the restaurant industry and improving the experiences of restaurant team members and operators.
Self-starter who demonstrates ownership, accountability, and bias for action.