Senior Product Manager

Position Summary

The Senior Product Manager stewards the product direction and ongoing development of the technology that EMA's staff, affiliate partners, and the mothers we serve rely on every day. Working in close partnership with the Director of Program Technology, this role turns program needs into a clear product roadmap and shepherds development from idea to launch to continuous improvement.

The role's anchor is Trellis, EMA's custom case management platform — approached not as a ticket queue but as a product to be understood deeply, prioritized deliberately, and grown with intention. Alongside Trellis, this person will help bring two new potential products from concept to launch, and will help build Trellis with a longer horizon in view: the possibility of one day offering it to partner organizations, so that EMA's family-preservation model can extend beyond our own walls.

This is a senior, hands-on role. Roughly 40% of the work is product management and development; the remaining 60% is direct systems, SaaS, and platform support - including Trellis tickets.

Role Description

Reporting, Structure & Focus

The Director of Program Technology owns overall technology strategy and sets priorities. The Senior Product Manager brings product-management discipline to that strategy and drives its execution - running discovery, maintaining the roadmap, defining requirements, and moving work from concept to launch.

This is a senior individual-contributor role. The approximate focus split is:

• ~40% — Product & development: product management, Trellis stewardship and enhancement, and new-product work.
• ~60% — Systems & support: SaaS and platform support, vendor coordination, and Trellis ticket triage.

Key Responsibilities

Product Management & Strategy

• Partner with the Director of Program Technology to build, maintain, and prioritize a product roadmap spanning Trellis and any new products.
• Run discovery with staff and end users to define problems clearly before committing to solutions.
• Write clear requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria; define what success looks like and the metrics that will measure it.
• Balance day-to-day requests and tickets against roadmap progress — prioritizing end user experience that is a hindrance to work completion while also protecting time for the build.
• Communicate priorities, trade-offs, and progress to leadership and staff

Trellis Stewardship & Development

• Develop deep expertise in Trellis as a platform; its data model, workflows, permissions, reporting, and integrations - not simply its ticket queue.
• Prioritize and manage enhancements, from small fixes to structured development projects.
• Identify recurring issues and systemic opportunities to improve the platform.
• Use AI-assisted development tools to prototype, build, and ship enhancements and integrations.
• Build with configurability, documentation, and versioning discipline, keeping open the possibility of future distribution to partner organizations.

New Product Development

• Help take two new products from concept through discovery, validated MVP, and launch.
• Apply 0-to-1 product practices: problem definition, user validation, scoping a minimum viable version, and iterating from real use.
• Coordinate design, build, and rollout in partnership with the Director and any external development partners.

Systems, SaaS & Support

• Serve as a responsive technology resource for staff, resolving or escalating common software, access, SaaS, and system issues.
• Handle Trellis tickets — triaging, resolving, or escalating promptly.
• Support administration of organizational SaaS platforms: access, permissions, configuration, and maintenance.
• Coordinate with EMA's managed service provider and technology vendors on issues requiring external support, holding them accountable for timely service.
• Support technology onboarding and offboarding.

Documentation, Training & Enablement

• Create SOPs, user guides, and documentation that make EMA's technology easier to use — and that would make Trellis explainable to an outside organization.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role is measured by outcomes, not activity:

• A product roadmap kept current and prioritized against real program needs.
• New products moved from concept to validated MVP and into staff hands.
• Trellis is continually improved, for the staff and mothers who use it: fewer recurring problems, faster workflows, adopted new features.
• Reliable systems and responsive support, with tickets and vendor issues resolved without derailing roadmap progress.

Qualifications & Skills Required

Core

• Approximately 3–5 years of relevant experience, including 2+ years in a product management or product owner role with clear ownership of a roadmap and delivery.
• A track record of taking at least one product from concept to launch (0-to-1), not only maintaining existing software.
• Demonstrated ability to run discovery, define problems, write requirements, and set and track success metrics.
• Substantive, hands-on use of AI in real projects: automation, prototyping, workflow improvement, integration, or development; and the ability to explain the problem, approach, tools, and results.
• Experience supporting or administering SaaS platforms, with the ability to troubleshoot independently while knowing when to engage outside partners.
• Strong communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and follow-through.

Strongly preferred

• Experience with configurable, multi-tenant, or white-labeled software, or with products used by more than one organization.
• Experience working with managed service providers or technology vendors.
• Experience creating SOPs and documentation and leading technology training.
• Experience in mission-driven, nonprofit, or resource-constrained environments.

Alignment with EMA: The Senior Product Manager must carry out their responsibilities in a way that reflects EMA's mission and values — dignity, collaboration, joyful participation, responsible stewardship, and measurable impact in service of mothers and families.