Senior Director, Product Management at Natera in San Carlos, CA

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Senior Director, Product Management manages the Product Management team; and manages a portfolio of existing diagnostic and software products. Is accountable for launching new medical diagnostic and software platforms for Organ Health, with additional add-on product features per year. Identifies, evaluates, and structures new business concepts into thoughtful business plans.

The Senior Director, Product Management provides product definition, product management, strategic prioritization, and technical product leadership for the Natera current portfolio of products as well as future pipeline products. Has responsibility for projects encompassing the product lifecycle from concept to obsolescence, as well as creation and communication of the product vision by working collaboratively with all sectors of the organization involved in the product lifecycle.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Team Leadership

• Build and lead the Product Management team: select, hire, train, and coach.
• Develop Product Management processes and team infrastructure.
• Create and maintain a strong focus on defining and driving metrics.
• Routinely conduct effective planning, budgeting, and resourcing; accountable for team budget and objectives.
• Form and lead cross-functional teams as required.
• Coordinate and collaborate with company leadership team.
• Effectively communicate the corporate mission and the unmet needs being addressed by our products, to inspire team members.

Product Definition

• Provide senior Product Management leadership from product concept, through customer and product requirements, through implementation and launch. Train Product managers to think rigorously and gather appropriate internal and external data to define the unmet need, craft product requirements, and evaluate performance tradeoffs.
• Understand the competition, and be able to articulate how our product is differentiated and why those differentiators will win share in the marketplace.
• Excel in the concept and feasibility phase of product development: provide thought leadership and critical analytical thinking on new product/business ideas, and produce flawless PRDs.
• Drill down into the details of specific algorithm and molecular issues to understand how those technical features relate to product features, and help guide development to produce an optimum product feature set.
• Understand and communicate trade-offs as necessary in feature sets given performance of the underlying algorithms.
• Evaluate, prioritize, and communicate the roadmap for new pipeline products and timelines through the company.

Business Leadership

• Lead the team in building long-term business plans, with unit economics, ROI, and NPV outputs, to assess the value of new products and ventures. Evaluate model sensitivities and gather appropriate data to pressure-test these key assumptions.
• Make investment recommendations on the basis of rigorous, quantifiable business analysis.
• Take ownership of the bottom-line performance of current and future products in the portfolio.
• Establish and lead due diligence process for evaluation of outsourced products

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree required, either PhD or MBA, preferred
• Minimum of (5+) years of product management and/or product development experience, with at least (7+) years overall experience with product, strategy, or sales & marketing within diagnostics, medical devices, and/or medical software industry
• Experience with all parts of the product lifecycle, particularly concept and feasibility phases, and experience managing multiple successful product launches.
• Experience developing and managing regulated products for clinical use, not only for research use; with appreciation for the value of clinical trials in product validation and adoption.
• Experience developing products with software component based on genomic/bioinformatic data sets preferred.
• Comfortable with modern product management processes and frameworks including scrum, agile, waterfall, etc.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Strong leader, with proven ability to build and lead a strong Product Management team, including hiring, training and developing employees.
• “Hands-on”, likes to dive deep and solve problems, detail-oriented.
• Energy, enthusiasm, and sense of urgency.
• Risk taker, entrepreneurial
• Self-starter, capability to identify and resolve problems independently.
• PHYSICAL DEMANDS & WORK ENVIRONMENT:
• Provide a brief description (3 to 5 sentences) that outline the physical needs and work environment [e.g. Duties are typically performed in an office setting. This position requires the ability to use a computer keyboard, communicate over the telephone and read printed material. Duties may require working outside normal working hours (evenings and weekends) at times.]
• Duties are typically performed in an office setting.
• This position requires the ability to use a computer keyboard, communicate over the telephone and read printed material.
• Duties may require working outside normal working hours (evenings and weekends) at times.