VP of Product and Partnerships

Job Responsibilities

• Product Strategy & Roadmap: Partner closely with the CEO to translate product vision into a clear sequenced roadmap with defined milestones priorities and success metrics. Own the development and grooming of specific product requirements and communicate roadmap direction clearly across the ELT engineering and customer-facing teams.
• Market & Customer Intelligence: Inform the roadmap by developing a deep understanding of customers and market dynamics. Run focus groups user interviews customer testing and structured beta programs. Combine direct customer engagement with a working knowledge of the higher education and workforce ecosystem strategic buyers and technology trends to make sharp well-grounded prioritization decisions.
• Strategic Partnerships: Own all aspects of uConnect's partnership strategy including content partnerships and platform integrations. Identify evaluate and manage relationships with content providers technology partners and integration vendors whose offerings enhance the student and career services experience within the Virtual Career Center.
• Internal Enablement & GTM Alignment: Serve as a strong internal communicator and product champion. Support Customer Success Marketing and Sales with product messaging value pitch development and internal enablement to ensure every customer-facing team can speak confidently to what uConnect builds and why.
• Engineering Collaboration: Bring sufficient technical understanding to collaborate effectively with engineering leadership on planning scope sequencing and delivery. Define requirements and communicate priorities clearly to ensure smooth handoffs throughout the development lifecycle.
• Product Monetization: Bring a track record of implementing monetization strategies and nuanced ideas for expanding monetization within the Virtual Career Center. Partner with Finance and the CEO on packaging pricing and feature tiering including usage-based outcomes-based and add-on models ensuring the roadmap reflects both customer value and commercial opportunity.
• AI & Innovation: Own the product roadmap for AI-powered features and develop a clear vision for leveraging AI internally across product and design operations to scale team capacity and accelerate delivery. Drive a framework for responsible customer-informed AI product development in the higher education context.
• Data Architecture & Strategy: Bring a strong point of view on how to evolve uConnect's Virtual Career Center into a data-driven platform. Lead the product vision for outcomes data engagement analytics and institutional reporting that positions uConnect as essential infrastructure rather than a discretionary tool.
• Thought Leadership: Build and maintain a presence in the higher education career services and edtech space. Bring a network a voice and the credibility to represent uConnect externally and attract the right partners customers and talent.
• Team Leadership: Build and mentor a high-performing product team. As uConnect scales you will establish the organizational practices documentation standards and cross-functional workflows needed to sustain product excellence. 

Required Skills & Experience

• 7+ years of product management experience including 3+ years in a senior or leadership role at a SaaS company.
• Demonstrated ability to translate executive vision into a structured sequenced product roadmap with clear priorities and measurable outcomes.
• Proven track record of owning product requirements end-to-end from discovery and grooming through delivery and adoption.
• Experience running customer research programs including focus groups user interviews surveys and beta testing with a demonstrated ability to turn customer and market insights into roadmap decisions.
• Strong technical understanding sufficient to meaningfully inform roadmap planning and engage credibly with engineering teams in an agile or lean development environment.
• Data-driven approach to prioritization and decision-making with comfort using both qualitative and quantitative inputs.
• Executive presence and strong internal communication skills with the ability to align cross-functional teams and influence at all levels of the organization.
• Experience working in a fast-paced startup or scale-up environment where adaptability and ownership are essential.
• Familiarity with modern product tooling (e.g. Jira Linear Productboard Figma Notion or equivalents).
• Track record of implementing product monetization strategies with nuanced ideas about packaging pricing and expanding revenue within an existing customer base.
• Experience building or managing content partnerships and technology integrations including evaluating partners negotiating agreements and managing ongoing relationships with content providers and platform vendors.
• A clear vision for applying AI to both product features and internal product and design operations to scale team capacity.
• Strong point of view on data architecture and how to evolve a SaaS platform into a data-driven solution that creates defensible long-term value.
• Demonstrated thought leadership network or external influence in the higher education edtech or career services space.
• Background in higher education edtech career services or workforce development is strongly preferred. Candidates with direct experience building products for universities community colleges or workforce development organizations are highly encouraged to apply.

What You'll Get

• Remote work and flexible schedule
• Gold PPO health insurance with nation-wide networks covered at 100% for employee premiums and 60% for dependents
• Dental insurance covered at 75% for employee premiums and 50% for dependents
• Vision insurance covered at 75% for employee premiums
• Optional Health and Dependent Care FSAs
• One Medical Primary Care Membership
• 100% vested 401(k) with 100% of employee contributions matched up to the first 3% of pay and 50% of employee contributions matched on the next 2% of pay after a 90-day waiting period
• Employer-paid $50000 basic life insurance policy
• Unlimited paid vacation time
• Quarterly mental health days
• 12 weeks paid parental leave after one year of employment
• Home office stipend
• Equity participation in uConnect’s stock option program

What We Do

uConnect built the first all-in-one virtual career center platform designed to radically improve digital student engagement. Our mission is to empower the next generation to realize their full potential by improving access to career resources networks and opportunities—early in their lives and throughout their careers 91% of students enrolling in college indicated that employment was their primary or sole motivation yet half of U.S. college students graduate without ever having used career services or its online resources. uConnect's virtual career center combines career content management and modern student communication to improve visibility accessibility and utilization of high-impact career services for students faculty and the campus community. Schools like Bentley University MIT and UCLA use uConnect to transform the role of career services from an admitted weakness to a strategic competitive advantage to inspire purposeful pathways from education to employment. Developed directly from the experience of our founder uConnect is deeply committed to ensuring every young person can access the career information and support they need to succeed regardless of their age what school they go to or where they are from. uConnect is backed by leading education technology investors including Strada Education LearnLaunch and Growth Street Partners.