Assistant Product Manager

Blueface is a Comcast Business technology company specializing in unified communications as a service to carriers and businesses of any size, anywhere in the world. Based in Dublin, Ireland, Blueface began in 2004 with a mission to change how businesses communicate globally. Comcast Corporation is a global media and technology company with three primary businesses: Comcast Cable, NBCUniversal, and Sky. Blueface has a global reach with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and Philadelphia, USA; with additional offices in New York, Rome, and Madrid. As a member of Comcast Business, Blueface’s culture is built on integrity and respect—with the goal of working together to drive ourselves and our businesses to always be creative, innovative, and competitive. At Blueface, we embrace good ideas and bring them to life quickly. We’re forward-looking and restless in looking for new ways to innovate for our customers. Job Summary Working closely with the product manager, you will join the global, multi-functional Blueface product and technology team and will play an important role in the definition and development of new product features and processes. The main purpose of this role is to work with the product manager and a number of business departments & stakeholders to gather customer requirements and prioritise the requirements. As Blueface works with many international businesses, the requirements and customer needs can vary, yet we strive to develop a core solution that provides value to all of our customers. You will help to define the product vision, and will be involved in elective research projects to benchmark our functionality and investigate what features we should prioritise on our roadmap. You will work closely with our engineering, marketing, sales and support teams to ensure we develop a product that matches and exceeds our customers’ expectations. We are looking for a candidate who is willing to grow alongside our innovative, high-growth company. The role will have scope to evolve based on the candidate’s desire to learn and become involved in other fields. Job Description Core Responsibilities The Assistant Product Manager solicits ideas for new products from others and contributes ideas for new products. He/she collects information on new product ideas, analyses new product ideas, and helps evaluate new product ideas. You will gather and define new feature or process improvement requirements and priorities through meetings with various business stakeholders and user representatives. Articulate all relevant aspects of the feature or process improvement using a blend of methods, including system diagrams and user stories. Work with the product team, the chief technology officer (CTO) team and various business units to agree the prioritisation and relative importance of enhancements. Work with our agile software development teams to explain and clarify requirements and any additional challenges that occur during the development process. Competitor Analysis: Perform detailed competitor analysis and identify opportunities to improve our product offering. You will maintain awareness of potential competitive products, competitors, and competitor capabilities. You will actively collect and analyse data on competitors and help to organise this data into meaningful information. Effectively uses competitive information in the development of a new product. You will gather enough data and be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of proposed products relative to the competition, and can anticipate competitive responses. Market Analysis: maintain constant surveillance and awareness of the market and has been able to effectively identify customer needs and trends. Perform analysis on proposed features to establish their viability and relevance to our customers. Perform retrospective analysis to account for the success of product initiatives. Assist with user experience testing, including interviews and observation. Assist the product team with product roadmap development and maintenance, including short-term and long-term vision components. Prepare project initiation and product requirement documentation. Work with the team to develop a comprehensive set of requirements that address all defined customer needs and that are complete. Product requirements are effectively communicated to team members to assure a complete and consistent understanding of the requirements. Product requirements are managed to minimize changes once development is underway. Any changes in products requirements are carefully evaluated to minimize disruption to the development team and plan. Where required, prepare documentation to inform operational teams of product updates and new features. Foster a data-driven culture; enable the organisation to make more informed decisions through data & business analysis. Work with the product manager and the CTO team on various tasks related to whitelabel acquisition. Preparation of Voice of the Customer Plan: proactively develop a plan for collecting voice of the customer (VOC) data early in the development cycle. The plan addresses methods to be used, definition of the customers to be talked to, resources required, and the schedule for the investigation effort. The Assistant Product Manager applies VOC techniques appropriately to understand both stated and latent needs. The customer needs identified reflect this VOC input rather than The Assistant Product Manager’s initial perceptions of the customer needs. Customer Needs Definition: develop an effective understanding of the customer needs balancing the information collected, with risks of not fully understanding customer needs and assessing market potential and with the anticipated costs. Portfolio Planning: provide needed analysis to support product portfolio planning. If The Assistant Product Manager participates in portfolio planning with management, he/she provides useful insights and perspectives to prioritize development programs. Analyse and rationalise the product portfolio: The Assistant Product Manager regularly conducts a critical review of his/her product line or product portfolio to identify needed actions to discontinue poor performing products, overlapping products, or products that require repositioning or re-launching. Communicate product plans & strategy with management: The Assistant Product Manager effectively communicates product plans and strategy with management to obtain required decisions, resources or management support and minimize surprises. Communicate product plans & strategy with team members: The Assistant Product Manager effectively communicates product plans and product strategy with team members to assure understanding and obtain consensus where necessary. As a result, team members are well-aligned with overall plans and understand program direction and needed actions. Support customers and channel partners: support requests for customer proposals and presentations and ensures all relevant materials exist to support the product. He/she creates and defines tools that enable the sales channels and customers to evaluate product options Manage product lifecycle: based on product performance, The Assistant Product Manager helps to determine when actions are needed to upgrade, improve, revise or reposition products, or when actions are needed to revise product promotional programs and product pricing. Where necessary, determine if existing products need to be discontinued, and develop appropriate plans to discontinue the product and migrate customers to a new product. Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and weekends, variable schedule(s) and overtime as necessary. Other duties and responsibilities as assigned. Required Skills & Competencies Experience working in product management. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to build solid relationships with individuals at all levels, in multiple geographies and business functions, both internally and externally. Experience gathering and compiling business requirements. Experience creating documentation that contains some technical elements. Ability to simplify complex situations; strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Must be able to multi-task and project manage many tasks simultaneously. Ability to work under deadline constraints. Demonstrated success defining and launching excellent products Beneficial Skills and Competencies: Experience working with Agile software delivery processes is an advantage. Experience with software project management. Experience working in the Telecommunications industry is an advantage. The Candidate: While Blueface is committed to developing our product, we are even more committed to developing our culture and work environment. With this in mind, the ideal candidate will possess: 2 years' minimum experience in product management or a project delivery role, such as Project Management, Program Management. A relevant degree qualification is desirable - such as a Bachelor's degree in Operations, Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Computer Science, or equivalent alternative education, skills, and/or practical experience. A formalised training in Business Analysis/Project Management or a Lean Six Sigma qualification is helpful. Strong communication and collaboration skills - written and verbal communications. Embraces continuous improvement and new ways of doing things, navigating in a dynamic and often ambiguous environment while providing information to drive improvement. Inquisitive nature, and can think creatively, with strong analytical skills. Can be objective and independent. Thinks in a way that synthesises many ideas into a big-picture view. Has a level of proficiency in understanding, explaining and documenting both business and technical requirements. Has experience modelling ‘as is’ and ‘to be’ processes using various tools. Experience developing data flow diagrams to determine data flow characteristics and requirements. Team player - can effectively contribute to the work of others and works well in a matrixed team environment. Location and Perks Blueface HQ is located in the IFSC, in the heart of Dublin. The area is served by excellent infrastructure and public transit links (DART, Dublin Bus, LUAS), and is close to all that Dublin City has to offer including restaurants, cinemas, theatres, bars and shopping. The Liffey is lined with benches for relaxing riverside breaks, there are numerous quality restaurants and hotels in the area and you’ll find Dublin’s spectacular coastline just 10-minutes away. Blueface also provides our staff with WebDoctor, a remote GP-service to keep you in rude health. The IFSC is a hive of activity for the software development community and you’re never far from a MeetUp, conference or tech-driven breakfast morning. Employees at all levels are expected to: Understand our Operating Principles; make them the guidelines for how you do your job. Own the customer experience - think and act in ways that put our customers first, give them seamless digital options at every touchpoint, and make them promoters of our products and services. Know your stuff - be enthusiastic learners, users and advocates of our game-changing technology, products and services, especially our digital tools and experiences. Win as a team - make big things happen by working together and being open to new ideas. Be an active part of the Net Promoter System - a way of working that brings more employee and customer feedback into the company - by joining huddles, making call backs and helping us elevate opportunities to do better for our customers. Drive results and growth. Respect and promote inclusion & diversity. Do what's right for each other, our customers, investors and our communities. Disclaimer: This information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees in this role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications. Comcast is an EOE/Veterans/Disabled/LGBT employer. Education Bachelor's Degree Relevant Work Experience 2-5 Years Base pay is one part of the Total Rewards that Comcast provides to compensate and recognize employees for their work. Most sales positions are eligible for a Commission under the terms of an applicable plan, while most non-sales positions are eligible for a Bonus. Additionally, Comcast provides best-in-class Benefits. We believe that benefits should connect you to the support you need when it matters most, and should help you care for those who matter most. That’s why we provide an array of options, expert guidance and always-on tools, that are personalized to meet the needs of your reality – to help support you physically, financially and emotionally through the big milestones and in your everyday life. Please visit the compensation and benefits summary on our careers site for more details.