Principal Product Manager

We’re seeking a hands-on Product Manager to help deliver digital services that make a meaningful difference in the lives of Veterans. This role is focused on execution: breaking work down, driving the team forward, and ensuring outcomes are shipped—not just started.You’ll serve as a strong voice for both Veterans and the VA, ensuring the product reflects real needs while aligning with agency objectives. You'll be a day-to-day leader on the team, helping guide decisions, push work forward, and maintain a high standard of focus and accountability.What you'll do:

• Own and manage the product backlog, ensuring work is clearly defined, prioritized, and actionable.
• Develop and maintain a product roadmap with quarterly goals and detailed sprints, aligned with product and portfolio priorities.
• Drive clarity and delivery by breaking down complex initiatives into epics, stories, and tasks, ensuring the team knows exactly what needs to be done.
• Push for alignment around what needs to be done—ensuring all necessary pieces of an effort are identified before work begins.
• Produce clear documentation and artifacts that facilitate cross-functional alignment, support delivery, and communicate progress effectively to stakeholders.
• Guide the team in planning and prioritization to ensure focus is maintained on delivering impactful, high-priority work.
• Identify, escalate, and resolve delivery risks—proactively seeking solutions that keep momentum moving forward.
• Ensure all deliverables consider the greater VA.gov ecosystem, as well as upstream and downstream impacts.
• Leverage a structured approach to decision-making, including gathering input and data, evaluating trade-offs, and synthesizing into clear, actionable plans and recommendations.
• Serve as the voice of the Veteran and the VA, keeping user needs and agency goals front and center in every product decision.
• Develop and maintain a product roadmap with quarterly goals and detailed sprints aligned with product and portfolio priorities.
• Work closely with engineering, UX, and stakeholders to ensure work is aligned, blockers are removed, and expectations are clear.
• Recognize and draw on the unique strengths of team members, while providing the guidance and structure needed to help everyone contribute effectively.
• Drive a culture of shipping by encouraging ownership, accountability, and follow-through.
• Mentor product managers as needed to support quality and timely deliverables.

What you'll bring

• 10+ years of experience in a product role on cross-functional teams.
• Experience supporting federal government contracts, ideally with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
• Proven ability to manage product backlogs effectively and bring clarity to complex workflows.
• Strong organizational skills and an ability to drive execution across multiple workstreams.
• Excellent communication skills and emotional intelligence; able to work effectively with diverse stakeholders and team members.
• Comfort guiding teams through ambiguity and helping individuals perform at their best.
• Experience managing and delivering work with GitHub Projects.