People Product Manager

Ready to shape the future of People technology at Southwest? As a People Product Manager, you will define and drive the product strategy, roadmap, and priorities for Talent Management, Recruiting, and Workforce Planning solutions within the HR Product Management Team. You will partner with business stakeholders, Product Teams, Technology, and vendors to understand customer needs, evaluate tradeoffs, and deliver technology capabilities that create meaningful business value. In this role, you will translate strategic objectives into prioritized product initiatives, guide requirements and delivery, and ensure alignment across Workday and adjacent platforms. Beyond implementation, you will be accountable for adoption, value realization, and continuous improvement, helping Southwest deliver innovative People solutions that support Employees throughout their career journey.

The culture of Southwest Airlines means we value the camaraderie, collaboration, and innovation that occurs when we come together and interact face-to-face at our vibrant Corporate Campus. Due to the nature of this role, you would be required to work from our Dallas, TX headquarters facility during business hours. U.S. citizenship or current authorization to work in the U.S. is required; no current or future work authorization sponsorship is available.

Responsibilities

• Identify customer needs and continuously refine Epics into Features, prioritizing and sequencing them on the PI Roadmap, and work with Product Owners within the ART to translate Features into Stories that satisfy the Product Vision
• Ensure Product completeness by creating Feature Acceptance Criteria, maintaining the Feature Definition of Done, and accepting Features
• Collaborate with Architects and other technical team members to ensure the solution effectively addresses functional and non-functional requirements while maintaining technical excellence by understanding and sequencing Enabler work in the Program Backlog and Program Kanban
• Collaborate with Change Management to prepare for product release (education, documentation, training, etc.)
• Participate in PI planning by defining and presenting the business intent, planned Features, and highlighting any known dependencies and milestones throughout each Program Increment, providing fast Program-level decisions within the event
• Actively participate in Inspect and Adapt (I&A) events
• Lead Feature definition and refinement including establishing feature acceptance criteria
• Lead the System Demo to evaluate working software and help assess business value delivered against the business intent
• Provide input and feedback to Epic Owners on new and existing Epics, with customer needs in mind
• Participate in the economic prioritization of Features and Enablers using techniques such as Weighted Shortest Job First
• Perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders

Requirements

• Knowledge of industry competition, trends, and changing customer needs
• Skilled in leading activities to support delivery work including product launch communications, training materials, user acceptance testing, business validation, success criteria measurement and analysis, and post-deployment analysis to identify improvements
• Skilled in developing and communicating the Product Vision and Roadmap
• Ability to communicate complex business needs clearly to leaders, managers, architects, and other technical stakeholders
• Ability to understand and support prioritized Portfolio work by collaborating with Lean Portfolio Management, Architects, and Epic Owners to break down Epics into Features
• Ability to build relationships and influence Leadership, Customers, Architects, and other Stakeholders to convert solutions into realizable business value
• Ability to influence and provide recommendations for releasing product(s) to Customers or the market
• Ability to manage legal, compliance, and security aspects of the product by collaborating across the enterprise
• High School Diploma or GED
• Bachelor’s Degree
• Expert-level experience in:
  • Managing requirements for large or complex software products
  • Facilitating exploration of potential solution alternatives or MVP/MMF options and achieving consensus
  • The collection and use of KPIs and leading indicators to inform Product decisions and achieve key results
  • Design Thinking and Customer Centricity
• Must maintain a well-groomed appearance per Company appearance standards
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have authorization to work in the United States as defined by the Immigration Reform Act of 1986
• Must be at least 18 years of age
• Must be able to comply with Company attendance standards
• Must meet confidentiality expectations regarding confidential, proprietary, and sensitive Company information
• Ability to perform work duties from a limited-space workstation/desk/office area for extended periods of time
• Ability to communicate and interact with others in the English language to meet the demands of the job
• Ability to use a computer and other office productivity tools with sufficient speed and accuracy to meet the demands of the job

Pay & Benefits

• Competitive market salary from $138,800 to $154,200 per year depending on qualifications and experience
• For eligible Leadership and individual contributor roles, additional bonus opportunities are available and awarded at the discretion of the company
• Fly for free, as a privilege, on any open seat on all Southwest flights (your eligible dependents too)
• Southwest will help fund your Retirement Savings Plan with Company contributions up to 9.3% of your eligible earnings
• Potential for annual ProfitSharing contribution in the Southwest Retirement Savings Plan—when Southwest profits, you profit
• Competitive health insurance for you and your eligible dependents (including pets), with coverage options starting from the first day of employment

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