Senior Product Manager – Platform

Senior Product Manager - Platform

About the Role

We’re looking for a Senior Product Manager - Platform to lead the strategy, vision, and execution of the Kuali Platform, the shared foundation that powers Kuali Build, Kuali Research, Kuali Academic Operations, and Kuali Ready,. You’ll own the capabilities every Kuali product relies on, including identity and access, workflow and forms, integrations and APIs, notifications, reporting, and other cross-module services. You’ll also serve as the product manager for Kuali Build and Kuali Ready.

You’ll collaborate with engineering, design, product leaders across each product line, and customer success teams to make sure the platform is reliable, secure, scalable, and easy to build on, and that releases across the portfolio ship predictably and with high quality. You’ll lead release and launch activities, from release planning and readiness through launch, and support go-to-market execution with Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success so customers understand and adopt what we deliver. Your work will help universities connect Kuali to their campus ecosystem, operate efficiently, and deliver exceptional experiences to faculty, staff, and students.

Who are we?

Kuali builds software solutions for higher education. We help our customers - colleges & universities - focus on providing a fantastic education to students by decreasing their administrative costs. We work in a competitive space, ripe for innovation, with users ready to be delighted.

Our Culture

As a company, we are guided by our cultural values:

• Iterate to evolve
• Cultivate openness
• Act with accountability
• Assume the best
• Practice humility
• Deliver amazing experiences

At Kuali, we learn from and teach each other, we practice transparency and empathy, we delight in delivering value to our customers, and we WIN!

We work remotely and have for years. Distributed work is in our bones, with a history of institutions working across state lines on open-source software for more than ten years. Our employees each work in the environment where they’re happiest, from Pennsylvania to Seattle. We work consciously to create a collaborative and healthy remote work culture, and we travel to meet in person a few times each year.

Everyone should love their work.

At Kuali, we embrace diversity and inclusion at every level. We value and respect individuals from all backgrounds, recognizing that a rich tapestry of experiences and perspectives fuels our success as a company and enriches our collective human experience.

What you’ll be responsible for

• Own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Kuali Platform, including the shared capabilities that support Kuali Build, Kuali Ready, Kuali Research, and Kuali Academic Operations.
• Serve as the product manager for Kuali Build and Kuali Ready, owning their roadmaps, backlogs, and customer and business outcomes.
• Define and manage cross-module platform capabilities such as authentication and SSO, user and group management, roles and permissions, workflow and forms engines, notifications, audit logging, data access, and platform reporting, dashboards, and analytics.
• Own Kuali’s integration strategy, including APIs, webhooks, the integration framework, and connectors to ERP, HCM, SIS, and LMS systems, so institutions can easily connect Kuali to their campus ecosystem.
• Partner with the product managers for Research and Academic Operations to understand their platform needs, align roadmaps, manage cross-product dependencies, and prioritize shared investments that benefit multiple products.
• Own the release process across the platform and product lines, including release planning, readiness criteria, feature flagging and phased rollouts, release notes, and communication to customers and internal teams, so releases are predictable, high quality, and low risk.
• Partner with Engineering on platform health, including reliability, performance, scalability, security, and technical debt, and make informed tradeoffs between foundational investments and new capabilities.
• Ensure platform capabilities meet the data privacy, security, accessibility, and compliance expectations of higher education institutions (for example FERPA, SOC 2, and WCAG).
• Translate customer feedback, institutional requirements, and product vision into clearly defined problems, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Define and track platform KPIs such as adoption of shared capabilities, integration usage, uptime and incident trends, release quality, and time-to-value for new implementations.
• Partner with Implementation, Services, Support, and Customer Success to improve the onboarding, configuration, and integration experience, and enable customer-facing teams on platform capabilities and releases.
• Communicate platform strategy, priorities, release plans, progress, and risks clearly to executive leaders, product teams, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities for platform-level AI capabilities that every Kuali product can leverage, and champion their responsible and effective use.

Ideal candidates have experience with:

• Define and execute the product strategy and roadmap for the Kuali Platform, aligning investments with company strategy and measurable customer and business outcomes.
• Own and communicate a compelling strategic narrative for the Kuali Platform, including its vision, value proposition, competitive differentiation, and intended customer outcomes.
• Develop a deep understanding of the higher education market, institutional needs, customer segments, competitive landscape, and relevant regulatory trends.
• Partner closely with customers and internal stakeholders to identify and validate opportunities that improve institutional efficiency, user experience, and student success.
• Translate market insights, product data, customer feedback, and user research into clearly defined problems, desired outcomes, hypotheses, requirements, and roadmap priorities.
• Build evidence-based business cases for product investments, considering customer value, market potential, revenue impact, cost, risk, and resource requirements.
• Establish clear prioritization frameworks and make informed tradeoffs among customer needs, business objectives, technical considerations, and available capacity.
• Partner with Engineering and Design throughout discovery and delivery to evaluate feasibility, manage scope and dependencies, and deliver accessible, scalable, and high-quality solutions.
• Lead cross-functional teams through product discovery, validation, prioritization, development, launch, adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Services, and Implementation to develop positioning, support go-to-market execution, enable customer-facing teams, and drive product adoption.
• Contribute to packaging, pricing, and commercialization decisions that strengthen the portfolio’s market position and business performance.
• Define product KPIs and use quantitative and qualitative insights to measure adoption, customer satisfaction, retention, operational performance, and customer and business outcomes.
• Monitor product performance following launch and use the results to continuously improve the product and inform future investment decisions.
• Identify and manage product risks and dependencies, including data privacy, security, accessibility, compliance, integration, scalability, and responsible AI use.
• Communicate product strategy, priorities, decisions, progress, performance, and risks clearly to executive leaders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Use AI to improve the quality, speed, and throughput of product work while championing its responsible and effective use throughout the product development process.
• Contribute to the continued development of Kuali’s product management practices, tools, and standards, including its AI-powered product operating system.

We’d be delighted if you bring experience with:

• 7+ years of product management experience, including 3+ years managing platform, API, integration, or infrastructure products in SaaS or enterprise software, with proven ability to achieve business outcomes.
• Proven success defining and delivering shared capabilities used by multiple products or teams, and managing a multi-product portfolio.
• Strong technical fluency, including comfort discussing APIs, data models, identity and SSO standards (SAML, OAuth, OIDC), cloud architecture, and system integrations with engineers.
• Experience owning or improving release management processes in an agile, continuous-delivery environment.
• Experience with no-code or low-code, workflow, forms, or business continuity products.
• Deep understanding of the higher education market and the campus systems landscape.
• Strong analytical, communication, and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to influence without authority across product teams.
• Passion for improving education through technology.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ERP, HCM, SIS, and LMS integrations.
• Familiarity with data-driven decision-making and product analytics tools.
• Background in Higher Education Academic Operations i
• A collaborative, curious, and mission-driven mindset.

Perks

• Remote-first work
• Top-of-the-line equipment of your choice to get your job done
• A truly exceptional benefits package including full premium coverage for employee and dependent medical and dental care
• 401(k) matching
• Employee stock option plan
• Paid Maternity/Parental leave
• All the paid time off you need (just work it out with your manager)
• Encouragement and support in learning and improving your skill-sets.
• Employee resource groups and community events

Pay Range: $131,000 - $152,000 per year