Director, Platform Product Management - Sophia Learning

Strategic Education • Full-time • Remote from United States of America • $116,300 - $174,500 / year • 3d ago

Fast Facts

Sophia Learning is seeking a Director of Platform Product Management to lead the product management and UX teams, enhancing both in-course and out-of-course learner experiences to improve student success and engagement.

Responsibilities: Oversee the product experience for Sophia’s learning platform, manage a multi-quarter roadmap, lead product discovery, and ensure user insights inform product strategy. Manage and grow a team of product managers and UX designers while collaborating across departments to enhance the learner journey.

Skills: Strong product management expertise in education technology, user-centered design, and UX collaboration. Proficient in analytics, user research, and agile methodologies.

Qualifications: 10+ years in product management, ideally in educational technology; 6+ years managing product teams; background in user research and human-centered design preferred.

Location: United States of America

Compensation: $116300 - $174500 / Annually

Sophia Learning exists to expand access to affordable, high-quality college-level learning through engaging, flexible, and academically rigorous online courses. As we enter our next chapter of growth, we are transforming our portfolio, reinventing our learning experiences, and scaling our ability to deliver outcomes for the thousands of learners who rely on Sophia every day.

The Director of Platform Product Management will oversee the product management and UX org responsible for both in-course and out-of-course learner experiences spanning navigation, assessments, learning flow, progress tracking, onboarding, engagement, and more. This role will also be responsible for owning and defining Sophia's portfolio of offerings. This is a highly cross-functional role that requires exceptional product craft, user-centered thinking, and the ability to lead teams in delivering experiences that meaningfully improve student success, satisfaction, and retention.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

ProductStrategy &Execution

Own the platform experience for Sophia’s learning environmentincluding course interactions, assessment experience, progress visualizations, onboarding, discovery, and student support touchpoints.
Develop and manage a multi-quarter roadmap aligned to learner needs, business goals, and overall productstrategy.
Lead product discovery and define clear problems, metrics, and hypotheses for improvement.
Drive execution in partnership with engineeringto deliver high-quality, impactful features.
Define and own Sophia's offering portfolio of courses and pathways

User Insight, Research & Experience Quality

Build and operationalize the infrastructurerequiredfor deep user understanding: behavioral analytics,event tracking,usability testing, journey mapping, and feedback loops.
Ensure user insights directly inform product prioritization, UX design decisions, and business strategy.
Maintainhigh standardsfor accessibility, intuitiveness, and user delight across the learner experience.

Team Leadership & Management

Lead, coach, and grow a team of product managers and UX designers, fostering strong product craft, collaboration, and accountability for outcomes.
Create clarity around roles, decision-making, and execution rhythms across product and UX teams.
Cultivate a culture of experimentation, evidence-based decision-making, and continuous improvement.

Cross-Functional Partnership

Partner closely with the Content, Engineering, Academic Operations, and Marketing teams to ensure a coherent and seamlesslearnerjourney.
Collaborate with stakeholders toidentifyfriction points, growth opportunities, and experience gaps across the student lifecycle.
Represent the platform product strategy with senior leadership, institutional partners, and key external stakeholders as needed.

Job Skills:

Product Leadership

Strong product managementexpertise, with the ability to define strategy, synthesize insights, structure ambiguous problems, and lead teams through execution.
Provensuccessbuilding and evolving digital learning experiences, ideally within an education technology context.

User-Centered Design & UX Collaboration

Deep familiarity with UX principles, design processes, and usability best practices.
Ability to guide UX work and ensure design decisions are grounded in learner insights and measurable outcomes.

User Understanding & Insights Infrastructure

Skilledatestablishingresearch practices, user feedback systems, analytics frameworks, and other mechanisms for uncovering learner pain points and behaviors.
Ability to translate qualitative and quantitative insights into clear product direction.

Operational& ExecutionExcellence

Strong ability to manage roadmaps, balance competing priorities, and deliver impact through agile, cross-functional teams.
Fluent in metrics, experimentation, and outcome-driven product development.

Leadership & Communication

Strongpeopleleadership skills with experience developing product managers and designers.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to align stakeholders and present ideas compellingly at all levels.

Work Experience:

10+ years of experience in product management, preferably within education technology or a related digital learning environment.
6+ years of experience managing product managers, UX designers, or similar product/experience-focused teams.
Demonstratedtrack recordof delivering impactful, user-centered digital product improvements at scale.
Experience leading platform or end-to-end user experience initiatives spanning onboarding, engagement, learning/interaction, and retention.
Experience working with engineering teams in agile environments and collaborating with cross-functional partners (content, design, analytics, operations).
Background in user research, UX strategy, behavioral analytics, or human-centered design is highly preferred.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree

Other:

Must be able to travel occasionally should a business need arise. For mostrolestravel would not be common. Travel may involveplane,carormetro.In accordance withADA policies, reasonableaccommodationsregardingtravel limitations can be provided. Travel will be more common for roles such as Account Executives (25 - 50%), senior leaders (10 – 20%) or Capella Core Faculty (5 – 10%).
Ability to work onsite in Corporate or Campus location (in a typical office environment) may berequiredbased on role. If so, this would include being mobile within the office, including movement from floor-to-floor using elevators or stairs.
Ifoffsite or hybrid role,musthave access to work insettingwhich enables meeting all requirements of the role (including privacy, reliable internet access, phone, ability to video conference, etc.) at a remote location.
Faculty and Federal Work Study roles require access to work insettingwhich enables meeting all requirements of the role (including computer, privacy, reliable internet access, phone, ability to video conference, etc.) at a remote location.
This role may requirelifting,howeverreasonableaccommodationswill be provided in accordance with our ADA policies.
Must be able to meet critical thinking andproblem solvingaspects aligned to job duties, as well as effectively communicating with co-workers.
Mustbe able to work more than40 hoursper week when business needs warrant.Accommodationsrelated to schedule may be considered.
Able to access information using a computer.
Other essential functions and marginal job functions are subject to modification.

SEI offers a comprehensive package of benefits to employees scheduled 30 hours or more per week. In addition to medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans, SEI employees may take advantage of well-being incentives, parental leave, paid time off, certain paid holidays, tax saving accounts (FSA, HSA), 401(k) retirement benefit, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, tuition assistance as well as entertainment and retail discounts. Non-exempt employees are eligible for overtime pay, if applicable.

Careers - Our Benefits, Strategic Education, Inc

SEI is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive and collaborative culture where individuals can grow their careers and contribute fully. We strive to attract talent with broad experiences, skills and perspectives. We welcome applications from all. While it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top end of the pay range at SEI, we offer a competitive salary. The actual base pay offered to the successful candidate may vary depending on multiple factors including, but not limited to, job-related knowledge/skills, experience, business needs, geographical location, and internal pay equity. Our Talent Acquisition Team is ready to discuss your interest in joining SEI. The expected salary range for this position is below.

$116,300.00 - $174,500.00 - Salary

If you require reasonable accommodations to complete our application process, please contact our Human Resources Department at Careers@strategiced.com.