The Nature and Scope of the Position

ThingMagic is looking for an experienced Product Manager for its RFID reader product lines. The ideal candidate will have 8+ years of experience running large and complex programs that involve the delivery of hardware and software globally.

The successful Product Manager will have a thorough understanding of modern embedded/networked devices at the system level. This includes business and technical knowledge of networking technology, wireless networking technology, enterprise-grade hardware and software.  She/he is responsible for creating all documentation associated with product (e.g. Market Requirements Documents, Product Requirements Documents, Business Plans) and for determining and assessing new features and products in terms of the competitive landscape, customer requirements, and resource availability. She/he will be focused on defining who the product is for and what the product will do rather than how the product will do it. The Product Manager will monitor and analyze customer and competitor activity and provide accurate market analysis and projections. A key responsibility is to take an active, leadership role in future product roadmap planning.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of product management experience.
• Advanced degree in engineering, the sciences, or technical management is highly desirable.
• Proven ability to understand and communicate benefits and features of high-technology products.
• Experienced in understanding and articulating customers’ viewpoints, the problems, challenges and opportunities customers face in their businesses and how customers use, or could use, RFID products to address them.
• Experienced in the development of customer use cases, personas and scenarios, as well as user interface design.
• Demonstrated experience working collaboratively with engineering and departments and personnel throughout the company to successfully develop products.
• Strong leadership, verbal and written communication skills are essential.
• Strong strategic planning ability, particularly in managing several different stakeholders and deadlines.
• Strong organizational skills, follow through, execution and attention to detail.
• Knowledge of EPC-based RFID systems, standards, and key industry players is a big plus.  Prior experience in the RFID or wireless industry strongly desirable.
• Ability to ship complex hardware/software products on time and within budget.
• Experience "winding down" legacy products for next generation products.
• Demonstrated ability to make techno-economic trade-offs.
• Frequent travel (up to 50%); sometimes with little advance notice.

The Nature and Scope of the Position.

ThingMagic's Advanced Development Group develops cutting-edge systems based on ThingMagic’s portfolio of RFID products and solves challenging RFID system optimization problems for its customers. The Program Manager will be responsible for managing the conception, planning, execution, and delivery of these systems to customers. These systems typically require hardware, software, and mechanical components, as well as on-site installation. The successful candidate should be able to coordinate ThingMagic's internal resource pool as well as contractors to ensure on-time delivery of high-performance RFID systems.

Primary responsibilities

• Develop project proposals for complex RFID systems. This includes the development of program schedules, budgets, and customer-facing documents to communicate project scope.
• Present project proposals to customers both remotely and on-site. Assist with negotiations of project proposals.
• Create and maintain a web-based collaboration infrastructure (e.g., using wikis) that allows all stakeholders to create and view shared content generated during the project.
• Design and implement best practices (e.g., document revision control) for project-related documentation. This includes internal as well as customer-facing documents.
• Interface with engineering management to manage project resource allocation and scope changes.
• Interface with the finance department to manage program budgets and billing.
• Run periodic program reviews with all stakeholders and maintain meeting minutes and action items. Generate weekly reports for ThingMagic management.
• Present program reviews to customers remotely and on-site as necessary.
• Assist in identifying opportunities for new business development with existing customers.

Required skills and qualities

• Strong written communication skills: We are looking for someone with a demonstrated ability to communicate exceptionally well. This requires fluency with a variety of tools - Gantt Charts, presentations etc. - as well as the ability to think clearly and organize lots of information for consumption by a variety of audiences. We expect written communication output to be in the form of proposals, memos, and reports. The successful candidate will present examples of past work. Submitting these examples with the resume or pointing us to a web site along with the resume is highly encouraged.
• Strong oral communication skills: The candidate should have the ability to communicate complex ideas effectively one-on-one, in small groups, as well with larger audiences. We might require a short presentation on a pre-defined topic to a small group prior to interviews.
• Intellectual flexibility: We are looking for a person who can maintain the state of several projects. This implies catering to the needs of different customers and working with different groups of stakeholders simultaneously. Many times, this means creating ad-hoc methods of getting groups of people together to make decisions on the fly. The successful candidate has mastered all modern ways of collaboration so as to achieve this goal.
• Comfort with ambiguity: Some of our projects are closer to research than development. At the very least, this means that outcomes may not be well-defined at the beginning of the project, and might require continuous adjustment as the project progresses. The successful candidate has experience dealing with this kind of ambiguity and has developed strategies to minimize risk in such situations.
• Creativity: We frequently operate in resource-constrained situations, where the ideal solution to a problem is infeasible due to time, money, or human resource constraints. We are looking for a candidate who can develop creative methods to solve the problem within such constraints.

Education

A bachelor’s degree in engineering, the sciences, or technical management is highly desirable.

Experience

The successful candidate has 10 years of demonstrable experience in technical program management with successful outcomes. Hands-on engineering experience is a plus, as is experience with RFID or other wireless technologies.