Overview /Objective 

As Product Manager, you will be responsible for the product lifecycle activities for a portfolio of Communications equipment.  This includes understanding the business facing issues of the department(s) who utilize your product(s), creating/updating product management deliverables (support models, roadmaps, training strategy, product reviews), managing 2nd Level Application Support, application training, product administration and 3rd party vendors that support the product(s).  In addition, you will be responsible for project related tasks and/or deliverables for projects that impact your product(s).  

Lead the audio intercom and wireless technologies area of football technology team. Working closely with all vendors and partners in audio comms space to push innovation, deliver solutions on time, fix bugs and meet expectations. Manage project timelines with vendors, travel to stadiums for field testing and development of solutions. Manage workstreams for league intercom solutions for NFL venues, international games, Draft, Pro Bowl, Super Bowl, tent-pole events.  

You must be able to communicate with all areas of the organization and establish a strong relationship with stakeholders, vendors, and IT shared services to find innovative solutions that are aligned with the organizations short-term and long-term objectives.  You will work with the business and IT to define objectives, helping them understand the product positioning, key benefits, and target use cases. You will also serve as the internal and external evangelist for your product offering, often working or embedding yourself with the business to expand your understanding of the drivers that influence their requests. This will include managing the resolution of production support related issues. You will work with project management, business analyst and technical counterparts to define product release requirements. You will also serve as the liaison to the vendor, establishing a business relationship with their customer success, support, and product management teams.  

Responsibilities 

• Serve as the intersection between business, technology, and user experience.  

• Manage Existing NFL Communication systems.  Coach to Coach (C2C), Coach to Play (C2P), Official to Official (O2O), and all League Communications for Football Operations, Officiating, Player Health & Safety, and Broadcasting Department.  

• Work with Business Relationship Managers to act as the voice of the business within IT and be passionate about the delivering a high-quality user experience.  

• Develop and maintain working relationships with application owners and ensure communication is customer focused and professional.  

• Serve as 2nd Level Support for application and work with various support teams to resolve issues.  

• Creation and maintenance of key deliverables associated with the product i.e., support models, roadmaps, etc.  

• Manage the creation of and/or create training material and provide training to end users as needed.  

• Must understand the applications architecture and technology stack and most importantly understand the level of effort involved to support and enhance the product.  

• Evaluate the tradeoffs between features and maintainability to avoid feature creep and high maintenance burdens.  

• Define high-quality and comprehensive product requirements and ensure they address the customer use case.  

• Provide constructive feedback to technical staff during all phases of the software lifecycle to keep development priorities aligned with business needs.  

• Manage customer expectations and ensure business and technical staff share the same goals and timeline.  

• Assess the measurable business value of customer requests to prioritize work and ensure that benefits justify costs.  

• Manage vendor relationships and contribute enhancement requests to their roadmap.  

• Stay informed on the vendors market position, product roadmap, the vendors competitors and potential partner relationships for the product.  
• Work closely with NFL Event Frequency Coordination Team (EFC) to ensure league communications systems are not impacted by frequency interference  

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree 

• 5+ years of communication systems/product management experience.   

• Experience as an Internal Facing/Non-revenue Generating Product Manager (preferred).  

• A solid working knowledge of the product management lifecycle and understanding of industry standard communication systems best practices.  

• Prior experience with Scrum or Agile development methodologies.  

• A passion for emerging technologies and understanding of how the various components of the applications work together.  

• Experience managing software/hardware vendors and experience influencing vendor roadmaps.  

• Ability to implement robust and redundant communication systems to minimize any negative impact.  

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.  

• The ability to prioritize and take ownership of a project and/or issue and bring it to successful completion.  

• Excellent leadership, communication (written and oral), presentation and interpersonal skills.  

• Demonstrated ability to form constructive opinions and justify decisions.  

• Strong organization and time management skills.  

• Knowledge and experience in wireless communication technologies (DECT, CBRS, Wi-Fi, LTE, 5G etc)  
• Understanding of frequencies / wireless spectrum / frequency interference challenges and mitigation strategies for wireless intercom systems  

Other Key Attributes / Characteristics 

• Team player with good interpersonal skills  

• Organized Individual with excellent communication skills, both verbal and written  
• A strong problem solver with excellent troubleshooting skills  

Physical Demands 

• Installing and Certifying our Stadium communication Technology Stack requires physical/manual work  
• In Season – Weekend work required to support and manage technology on game days  

Travel 

• 25% Travel Requirement – Travel required to stadiums, offsite meetings / events, business partners, on-site testing at partner facilities  

Salary / Pay Range 

This job posting contains a pay range, which represents the range of salaries or hourly rates that the NFL believes, in good faith, at the time of this posting that it might be willing to pay for the posted job in the location(s) specified. The NFL expects to hire for this position near the middle of the range. Only in truly rare and exceptional circumstances, where an external candidate has experience, credentials or expertise that far exceed those required or expected for the position, would the NFL consider paying a salary or rate near the higher end of the range.  

Terms / Expected Hours of Work 

• NFL employees are required to work 40 hours per week  
• In Season – Game Shift schedule will be created to account for game support