Lead Product Manager, Platform Engineering

Here at Appian, our core values of Respect, Work to Impact, Ambition, and Constructive Dissent & Resolution define who we are. In short, this means we constantly seek to understand the best for our customers, we go beyond completion in our work, we strive for excellence with intensity, and we embrace candid communication. These values guide our actions and shape our culture every day.  When you join Appian, you'll be part of a passionate team that's dedicated to accomplishing hard things.

At Appian, we're not only about building awesome software, but also about growing our culture of passion, energy, and innovation; great people, great software! As a Lead Product Manager you will be a strategic leader on the product management team, overseeing the vision and product portfolio backlog. This role combines experienced product management leadership with the pivotal responsibilities of a Group Product Lead, offering an opportunity to shape the product strategy and the missions of several teams. You will oversee the product management execution working closely with the product managers for several cross-functional software engineering teams. This position reports to the Head of Product for the Platform Engineering Strategic Business Unit, which is responsible for Appian cloud offering.

This position will be specifically focused on the scalable, enterprise-grade managed services that power the backend data persistence and event streams for customer sites in Appian Cloud. You will provide product management leadership for initiatives that deliver efficient and scalable core compute and managed data planes as multi-tenant services to accelerate the innovations of Engineering teams throughout the department. Your portfolio will also include efforts to transform existing systems and software components into cloud-native, Kubernetes-based services while achieving incremental value for our customers from intermediate milestones. This position also includes oversight of a multi-departmental campaign to transition our self-managed customers to Appian Cloud or the latest version of our self-managed offering which requires Kubernetes.

You'll form strong relationships with counterparts within the Engineering department as well as stakeholders in other departments. You will oversee the creation of an impactful vision and ensure alignment between the product managers in your group and the roadmaps of the feature teams that rely on the services and frameworks provided by your organization. You will be accountable for the business impact of the features your group delivers. This includes owning the product strategy and feature backlog and ensuring effectiveness and adherence to standard product management processes.

What you'll do:

• Oversee the initiation, planning, execution, and rollout for strategic initiatives.

• Lead the creation and ongoing maintenance of a multi-team, short-term and long-term feature backlogs strongly aligned to product and corporate vision.

• Initiate and facilitate conversations across business units and departments to reach alignment on strategy, roadmap, key investments and messaging. 

• Build relationships with key business stakeholders, keeping them apprised of important features, critical scope changes, planned investments.

• Help identify and cultivate the next generation of product management leaders.

• Provide constructive feedback on feature specifications to ensure new feature delivery provides optimal impact.

• Coach product managers on balancing functional and non-functional enhancements and system improvements.

• Continuously enhance and improve the product management processes and techniques at Appian.

About you:

• Strong technical background, likely as a former software architect or developer who later became a product manager.

• Passion for the backend and infrastructure technologies that power cloud-based enterprise software systems, including proprietary, open-source, and industry-standard components.

• Experience with cloud native technologies and Kubernetes. An especially strong candidate will have previous exposure to delivering enterprise software to customers that run and manage their own Kubernetes clusters in addition to experience with these technologies as deployed in support of Software-as-a-Service offerings for enterprise customers.

• Deep understanding of data persistence, object storage services, event streaming platforms, multi-tenant shared services, and the security and compliance requirements  that apply to such systems with respect to enterprise customers.

• Experience delivering features built on stateful services such as Redis, Kafka, DynamoDB, and S3.

• Strong interest in the scalability, performance, security, observability, and reliability of distributed systems.

• Excellent communication skills, comfortable talking high-level strategy with CxOs in the morning and feature details with developers in the afternoon.

• Consistent track record of overseeing the successful delivery of multiple features across several teams.

• Proficient in conducting impact mapping activities and measuring success criteria.

• Experience leading the product management processes at a software product company.

• Experience working with multiple product managers at various stages in their careers.

Preferred Experience Level:

• Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related field

• 9+ years of product management experience

Tools and Resources 

• Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires. 
• Growth Opportunities: Appian provides a diverse array of growth and development opportunities, including our leadership program tailored for new and aspiring managers, a comprehensive library of specialized department training through Appian University, skills based training, and tuition reimbursement for those aiming to advance their education. This commitment ensures that employees have access to a holistic range of development opportunities.
• Community: We’ll immerse you into our community rooted in respect starting on day one. Appian fosters inclusivity through our 8 employee-led affinity groups. These groups help employees build stronger internal and external networks by planning social, educational, and outreach activities to connect with Appianites and larger initiatives throughout the company.

About Appian

Appian is a software company that automates business processes. The Appian AI-Powered Process Platform includes everything you need to design, automate, and optimize even the most complex processes, from start to finish. The world's most innovative organizations trust Appian to improve their workflows, unify data, and optimize operations—resulting in better growth and superior customer experiences. For more information, visit appian.com. [Nasdaq: APPN]

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Appian is an equal opportunity employer that strives to attract and retain the best talent. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. 

Appian provides reasonable accommodations to applicants in accordance with all applicable laws. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at ReasonableAccommodations@appian.com. Please note that only inquiries concerning a request for reasonable accommodation will be responded to from this email address.

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