Product Manager

General Description

As a Product Manager, you will have a strong background in the insurance industry, strong leadership and communication skills, product management, and a customer-centric mindset. Working and collaborating with others, your responsibilities will include defining desirable, viable, and sustainable solutions. Either working independently or with a team, a NorthWinds Product Manager will also have excellent communication, leadership, and problem-solving abilities, and be a forever learner. This role requires demonstrated mastery of listening, facilitating, researching, designing, influencing, and being a connector between groups.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

While NorthWinds products and the markets and customers we serve may change over time the product manager’s duties and responsibilities will align to 4 core areas:

• Partner with customers
• Understand customer needs deeply to ensure that NorthWinds solutions deliver maximum value over time
• Effectively and proactively communicate product vision, strategy, plans and progress to internal and external stakeholders
• Apply design thinking to NorthWinds solutions and our product life cycle
• Facilitate workshops with multiple stakeholder groups for product planning
• Define product strategy and plans
• Continually collaborate and work with multiple departments to create and implement logical product plans that meet customer needs while being supportable and scalable
• Act as the key authority and point of contact for product business strategy and business models  
• Define and validate product features that deliver value to customers and meet business objectives 
• Keep abreast of industry trends, best practices, regulations, and emerging technologies
• Manage and prioritize the delivery of the Product
• Define and prioritize required features and confirm how features will be delivered, acting as the point of contact for product owners and teams
• Establish and maintain strong relationships with product owners
• Manage the program board and prioritize features based on customer feedback, data analysis, business impact, and strategic alignment 
• Lead events such as PI planning
• Ensure value is delivered
• Monitor and evaluate product performance and user feedback 
• Identify and resolve issues or risks that may affect the product delivery or quality 
• Continuously strive to meet business goals including driving adoption of new features

Non-Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Other duties or projects as assigned

Education/Experience/Personal Requirements

• Bachelors Degree in Business Administration, Information Technology or related field or 4 years equivalent related work experience
• 5 years leadership experience in insurance setting, preferably including influencing insurance technology solutions
• Knowledge of insurance products, processes, regulations, and market dynamics 
• Experience working in a team-oriented Agile driven scrum framework, collaborative environment
• Proficient in data analysis, user research, wireframing, prototyping, and ideation 
• Excellent communication, facilitation, presentation, and interpersonal skills 
• Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively with diverse teams 

• Work well in team settings, but also on their own with minimal supervision; take charge in managing specific projects on occasion and ensure that analyses are completed correctly and in a timely manner. 
• Proven experience in overseeing the design, development and implementation of software and hardware solutions, or systems
• Good organization skills
• Ability to communicate ideas in both technical and user-friendly language
• Proven analytical and creative problem-solving abilities
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment
• Logical and efficient, with keen attention to detail
• Strong customer service orientation
• Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Repetitive motion. Substantial movements (motions) of the wrists, hands, and/or fingers.
• Picking, pinching, typing or otherwise working, primarily with fingers rather than with the whole hand as in handling.
• Expressing or exchanging ideas by means of the spoken word. Those activities in which they must convey detailed or important spoken instructions to other workers accurately, loudly, or quickly.
• Perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction. Ability to receive detailed information through oral communication, and to make the discriminations in sound.
• Sedentary work. Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently or constantly to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects. Sedentary work involves sitting most of the time.
• Visual Acuity. The employee is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity such as: preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; extensive reading.

Work Conditions

The work conditions described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• General office working conditions which may require sitting for extended periods of time
• National travel required <10%

Why NorthWinds

We’re not just building software — we’re building a place where employees can learn, grow, and make a meaningful impact.

What we offer:

• Full-time remote work with flexibility and trust
• Competitive base salary and annual bonus program
• Generous PTO, floating holidays, and volunteer time off
• 401(k) with 100% employer match for the first 6% (pre-tax or Roth)
• Comprehensive health benefits and disability coverage
• Profit sharing with discretionary contributions
• HSA, FSA, and dependent care accounts
• A culture built on collaboration, learning, and balance