Product Manager

The Product Manager at StoneAge delivers products for the global waterblast market, ensuring valuable ROI for both StoneAge and its customers. They are a valued and trusted partner of Engineering, Marketing, Sales, and Operations and serves as an unbiased source of information, aimed at identifying market needs and creating products that address those needs. From idea concept to delivery and subsequently as the product is maintained and phased out, the Product Manager owns the product. This position reports to the Director of Product and has a starting salary of $120k-$135k per year. This position can be remote and could require up to 50% travel to StoneAge and customer sites.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Coordinate between Sales, Engineering, and Marketing to align product development activities with company goals and mission. 

• Establish and maintain strong relationships with end users and key industry partners. 

• Gather and analyze market intelligence, sharing insights with stakeholders. 

• Identify market opportunities and product gaps. 

• Investigate competitive product strengths and shortcomings. 

• Collaborate to develop product requirements and strategy documentation including go-to-market strategy, prioritized features, competitive position, pricing strategy, strategic timing, and overall project business case.   

• Develop expertise with respect to competitive product strengths and shortcomings. 

• Maintain a healthy product portfolio – managing products from launch through eventual obsolescence. 

• Participate in Product Strategy Meetings involving key stakeholders. 

New Products: 

• Complete a written Product Charter for all assigned product development projects that incorporates input from other departments as outlined above.  

• Prioritize and triage feature requests for new products. Identify what is necessary for an MVP and what features can be delivered in subsequent versions.  

• Define and document business objectives and product vision for all assigned product development projects including customer opportunity (what value will the product bring to the customer), market opportunity (what will the product do for the market) and business opportunity (what will the product do for StoneAge). 

• Gather and prioritize market and customer requirements for all assigned product development projects including target markets/customers, needs analysis for customer use of the product, forecasted demand/adoption, and ROI analysis for proposed product development (also all inputs to the Product Charter). 

• Facilitate strategic and tactical pricing discussions. 

• Collaborate with the Engineering team to guide product development and achieve desired product performance, branding, and launch timing. 

• Enhance collaboration with internal teams to ensure all product-related documentation is customer-centric. This encompasses creating and aligning marketing campaigns, product bulletins, specialized training materials, and comprehensive product manuals. 

• Proactively work the New Product Introduction manager to ensure all downstream teams have the information and guidance needed to support successful product launches. 

Product Health: 

• Team with the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) team in support of product portfolio reviews. Specifically, the Product Manager is responsible for representing market position, customer needs, and liaising with Sales as required in support of these reviews.  

• Make recommendations to Engineering for product revisions, cost reduction, product enhancement, platforming, or obsolescence.  

• Work with global Sales Directors, Engineering and Quality to coordinate product warranty and recall issues ensuring all appropriate departments are aware of the issue and solution and coordinate with Marketing and Sales to ensure this information is accurately and quickly communicated to all internal and external customers. 

• Drive communication of all product obsolescence decisions to the dealers and customer networks. Develop and propose transition alternatives to help with new product adoption. 

• Collaborate with Marketing to support the generation and delivery of targeted product campaigns.  

General: 

• Ensure communication of product-related news to product strategy stakeholders and coordinate with global Sales Directors to communicate news to dealer and customer network. 

• Assist Marketing department in review of product catalogs, technical information, and campaign creation. 

• Attend and engage in all New Product Introduction meetings and engineering design reviews (that pertain to assigned or relevant products). 

• Support Sales from a training and product demonstration perspective as part of new product launch (as required). 

Requirements

The Product Strategy Manager must: 

• Bachelor’s degree (technical preferred) with 5+ years of direct or transferrable expertise in technical sales, product strategy, product management, or systems engineering.  

• Be a creative and strategic thinker with excellent problem-solving skills. 

• Be committed to “Safety First.” 

• Be customer service oriented, exhibiting flexibility and agility to meet customer needs. 

• Be able to analyze data and information and identify relevant themes, issues, and actions. 

• Be effective at building relationships at multiple levels - with other employees, customers and industry experts. Must be able to lead as a team member and persuade peers in other departments of participation in valued actions. 

• Have a strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office software. Experience with Salesforce or other Sales and Marketing database management tools is a plus. 

• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills. 

OTHER INFORMATION 

• Up to 50% travel will be required, primarily domestic with occasional international. 

• Extended working hours may be needed at peak times or when short staffed. 

We value the diversity of the people we hire and serve. Diversity at our company means fostering a workplace in which individual differences are recognized, appreciated, respected, and responded to in ways that fully develop and utilize each person’s talents and strengths. 

Benefits

StoneAge offers a comprehensive benefits program that includes:

• Group health, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance
• Long-term disability insurance
• Paid time off
• Paid holidays
• 401(k) plan with a guaranteed match
• Paid parental leave
• Wellness rewards program, and much more!

Even more excited, we are an employee-owned company with profit-sharing and an Employee Stock Ownership Plan ("ESOP"), in which shares of company stock are allocated to eligible employees each year.

Our "Own It" mindset captures what many of us consider the biggest benefit of all: a highly engaged, collaborative workplace where everyone matters and every employee makes a significant impact.

Please visit our website at www.stoneagetools.com to get a better sense of our company and our employee-owned culture!