At Cox, we’re forward-thinking innovators who put people first. Our award-winning workplace culture is centered on inclusion and kindness, and we’re looking for people to join our mission to be a force for good in the world. Come build a better future with us across automotive, communications, the environment and more.

We want to do everything we can to keep our employees safe and healthy. Therefore, where permitted by applicable law, you will need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to be considered for this U.S.-based job. Reasonable accommodations for medical and religious objections will of course be considered.

Keep reading to learn more about this opportunity to join the Cox family of businesses.

Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, this is a temporary work from home role but will ultimately work in the Atlanta, GA office or other Cox Automotive offices.

The Senior Manager Product Management role will be responsible for developing, managing and optimizing multiple large, complex product lines supporting Manheim’s reconditioning business. The role is responsible for establishing product strategy and leading a team of product managers and product owners in executing the strategy through product management best practices and frameworks.  This role also serves as the product lead and a people leader for product managers and product owners in the Recon release train and partners with engineering and agile leaders to build high performing delivery teams. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategy/Discovery:                                                                                                             

•    Provide strategic leadership and direction around the planning, development, execution, and operation of products, including creating new products from the ground up, recommending optimizations to existing products, and understanding when and how to retire products.

•    Partner and collaborate closely with leaders, operational excellence, operations support, engineering, and architecture partners and other CAPG leaders to ensure successful product strategy, design, delivery, and implementation efforts.    

•    Formulate an in-depth understanding of problems by customer segment and personas and competitive landscape.

•    Partner with UX research, marketing research, client solutions, and business stokeholds to observe and solicit feedback from consumers and clients.

Planning:

•    Create and maintain product vision and roadmap; create business plans to secure funding; develop go-to-market strategy and value proposition. Illustrate market problems in a way that puts the problem in context Provide relevant, timely and easily consumable updates to all internal and external audiences.

•    Create Epics and Features and ensures it aligns across products; manage feature creation, identify business rules and business impact; involve Product Owners to ensure delivery team is aligned to features and feature acceptance criteria; collaborate with other product managers to ensure alignment across products; participate in planning and pre/post-planning events (Demos and Inspect/Adapt).

Development:

•    Build an effective relationship and team between Product & Development; Collaborate with Product Owners, UX architecture and others to execute work including prototyping and testing to validate solutions; make buy/build/partner recommendations to Agile Release Train; collaborate with Architecture, Technology, etc. to develop recommendations, support testing, partner with revenue and business stakeholders to develop pricing strategies and assess ROI.

Sales & Client Engagement:

•    Partner with client solutions, product readiness and marketing teams to articulate the strategies and programs that will generate awareness and leads for the upcoming fiscal period – including measurements and goals.            

Evaluation:

•    Assess product performance against KPIs and makes corrections to improve performance; create and deliver thoughtful information to influence key market constituents; make end-of-life recommendations for non-performant products.

TECHNICAL/FUNCTIONAL SKILLS

•    Product Management – Manages the full product lifecycle to ensure that, over time, the needs of customers/users continue to be met and that financial and other benefits are achieved. Acts as owner/champion for one or more products or services. Selects, adopts and adapts appropriate product development methods, tools, and techniques selecting appropriately from predictive (plan-driven) approaches or adaptive (iterative/agile) approaches. Analyzes market and/or user research, feedback, expert opinion and usage data to understand needs and opportunities. Develops product propositions and determines product positioning and variants for different customer and user segments. Prioritizes product requirements and owns the product backlog. Coordinates trials and product launches and supports communications and training. Anticipates changes in customer/user needs; adapts products and creates product retirement and transitioning plans.

•    Portfolio Management – Ensures that program/project leads and/or service owners adhere to the agreed portfolio management approach and timetable and that they provide the appropriate information to agreed targets of timelines and accuracy. Produces reports as appropriate for portfolio governance, including making recommendations for changes to the portfolio.

•    Requirements & Definition Management – Defines and manages product scoping, requirements definition and prioritization activities for initiatives of medium size and complexity. Facilitates input from stakeholders, provides constructive challenge and enables effective prioritization of requirements. Reviews requirements for errors and omissions. Establishes the requirements base-lines, obtains formal agreement to requirements, and ensures traceability to source. Investigates, manages, and applies authorized requests for changes to base-lined requirements, in line with change management policy.

•    Relationship Management – Identifies the communications and relationship needs of stakeholder groups.  Translates communications/stakeholder engagement strategies into specific activities and deliverables.  Facilitates open communication and discussion between stakeholders, acting as a single point of contact by developing, maintaining and working to stakeholder engagement strategies and plans.  Provides informed feedback to assess and promote understanding.  Facilitates business decision-making processes.  Captures and disseminates technical and business information.

•    Innovation – Manages the innovation pipeline and executes innovation processes. Develops, evolves and adapts innovation tools, processes and infrastructures to drive the process of innovation. Identifies resources and capabilities needed to support innovation. Encourages and motivates innovation communities, teams and individuals to share creative ideas and learn from failures. Manages and facilitates the communication and open flow of creative ideas between interested parties and the set-up of innovation networks and communities.

•    Performance Management – Supervises individuals and teams. Allocates routine tasks and/or project work. Provides direction, support and guidance as necessary, in line with individuals’ skills and abilities. Monitors progress against agreed quality and performance criteria. Acts to facilitate effective working relationships between team members.

•    Other duties as needed or required.

•    Requires physical ability and mental acuity to execute the duties of the position successfully within required timeframes in order to meet business requirements.

Qualifications:

•    Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Engineering, Communications, or related field; Master’s degree preferred.

•    10 years of experience with at least 3 years experience in a management/leadership role.

•    Demonstrated ability to influence both with and without direct authority, building and leading high performing teams that consistently meet or exceed team and business goals in a fast-paced, high change, matrixed organization.

•    Deep experience in identifying product and partner KPI's and other analytics to measure product value.

•    Strong ability to create and deliver leadership presentations. 

•    Demonstrated experience in conducting competitive research and analysis.

•    Data-informed mindset with proven experience in discovering product solutions through analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.

•    Working knowledge of Agile product development lifecycle methodology, with proven ability to create epics and features for development.

•    Working experience in working with a collaborative, cross-functional team environment.

•    Working experience in design, development and implementation of product plans.

•    Actively seeks out new knowledge for own personal development and the mentoring or coaching of others.  

•     Develops a wide breadth of knowledge across the industry or business.

•    Applies knowledge to help to define the standards which others will apply.

Who We Are

About Cox Automotive

There’s nothing ordinary about Cox Automotive. We are people of every background driven by our passion for mobility, innovation, client success and community outreach. We make buying, selling and owning (or simply using) cars easier for everyone. Touching more than 40,000 clients across five continents, we bring together the best brands and the best teams to propel the automotive industry forward. Some of those team members work for our iconic consumer brands like Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book, while others are creating the future of automotive at industry-facing brands like Dealer.com, Manheim and vAuto.

About Cox 

We are the Cox family of businesses. We’ve been making our mark since 1898 by building and evolving world-class businesses, staying true to our values, and encouraging top talent to always look for growth and impact while building a career with us.  Our primary divisions – Cox Communications and Cox Automotive – are driving a new wave of innovation, powering smart cities with powerhouse broadband communications and pioneering greener, more progressive transportation alternatives for individuals and fleet operators.  We’re also expanding into new spaces like cleantech and healthcare to rev up our momentum toward building a better future for the next generation.  We’re looking for the talent today who will be our leaders tomorrow. Sound intriguing? Learn more about where we are today, where we hope you’ll be going with us, and the common purpose that unites us at coxenterprises.com.

Benefits of working at Cox may include health care insurance (medical, dental, vision), retirement planning (401(k)), and paid days off (sick leave, parental leave, flexible vacation/wellness days, and/or PTO).  For more details on what benefits you may be offered, visit our benefits page.

Cox is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer – All qualified applicants/employees will receive consideration for employment without regard to that individual’s age, race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, ethnicity, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by law.  Cox provides reasonable accommodations when requested by a qualified applicant or employee with disability, unless such accommodations would cause an undue hardship.  

Statement to ALL Third-Party Agencies and Similar Organizations:  Cox accepts resumes only from agencies with which we formally engage their services.   Please do not forward resumes to our applicant tracking system, Cox employees, Cox hiring manager, or send to any Cox facility. Cox is not responsible for any fees or charges associated with unsolicited resumes.