Location: Bellevue, Washington

Company Overview:

At Apptio we are focused on changing the world by making every IT organization that we work with a more efficient and effective partner with the business. Apptio's Technology Business Management (TBM) solutions give IT and Finance leaders the insight they need to minimize IT cost, make ROI-optimized decisions, align IT resources around Services that align with business strategic needs and ensure that business leaders clearly understand the value of IT. From the founding of the company we set out to build a best-of-breed, easy to use solution that is designed specifically to manage the Cost, Quality and Value of IT Services and deliver both immediate value and superior ROI.

Duties:

As Product Manager, you will guide a team that is charged with a product line contribution as a business unit. This extends from increasing the profitability of existing products to developing new products for the company. You will build products from existing ideas, and help to develop new ideas based on your industry experience and your contact with customers and prospects. You must possess a unique blend of business and technical savvy; a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality. You must enjoy spending time in the market to understand their problems, and find innovative solutions for the broader market.

You must be able to communicate with all areas of the company. You will work with an engineering to define product release requirements. You will work with sales and presales – helping them understand the product positioning, key benefits, and target customer. You will also serve as the internal and external evangelist for your product offering, working with the sales and key customers.

A product manager's key role is strategic, not tactical.

Key Responsibilities:

• Managing the entire product line life cycle from strategic planning to tactical activities


• Specifying market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by on-going visits to customers and non-customers.


• Driving a solution set across development teams (primarily Development/Engineering, and Marketing Communications) through market requirements, product contract, and positioning.


• Developing and implementing a company-wide go-to-market plan, working with all departments to execute.

What skills will this person need?

• The ability to dig into what is stated by the customer and identify underlying problems.


• A business orientation to maintain the big picture of what the company is trying to do without getting caught up in details of the product. The business model, target market, and pricing need to be constantly tuned based on market learnings.


• Great communication skills to understand what the customer is stating and the ability to convert it into a language engineers understand.


• Project management skills so to prioritize and ensure things don’t fall through the cracks.


• Constant focus on market wants informed by constant presales, services and customer interactions to back hypothesis and problems with data


• An ability to cultivate and maintain intimate relationships with customer’s Apptio champions and extended user base to maintain the flow of problems and opportunities into the company and to ensure referenceability


• Successful startup experience


• Experience at a startup that failed if you can articulate the lessons learned from that experience.


• The ability to strike the right balance between process and flexibility. Someone who can function without regimented processes, but one who can also rein in the chaos so common in startups. As the company grows, add process into the mix to scale efficiently.


• Immense passion, energy and drive.


• The ability to work with very limited information and take the initiative


• Someone who can balance a strategic and tactical role. It is equally important the product manager lead discussions on product/business strategy and deal with day-to-day tactics to get the product out the door. This person should have a keen sense for product usability, performance and functionality because eventually these have major influence on product success.


• Sales and customer management skills. Our product managers need to be able to wow prospects and customers face to face. A strong PM candidiate is a good listener, can engage in active dialogue with prospects/customers and makes sales, prospects and customers confident and comfortable.


• Able to command the respect of the organization. Given the product manager will be ultimately responsible for bringing the voice of the customer into the organization, this person needs to win the respect of internal stakeholders. You must be able to stand up to the internal stakeholders when necessary because often what you discover in the market requires you to change internal opinions and points of view. This requires the ability to question currently held beliefs and opinions and recalibrate based on market realities.


• Discovering unsolved problems in a target market, building a product this target market is willing to buy and figuring out a business model that helps the company create a sustainable business is not a part-time effort.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of software product management experience, previous product marketing or presales roles desirable


• BI and ITIL experience desirable


• This position requires travel to customer and non-customer sites in North America and Europe (25%).


• Experience in a functional architecture role, defining concepts, use cases, and solutions that provide value to customers


• Technical experience in IT and/or domain knowledge of Business Intelligence and Data Analysis


• Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills with customers, teammates, and other internal colleagues


• Ability to operate in an agile, entrepreneurial start-up environment

If you think your previous work experience, achievements (both personally and professionally) make you an ideal candidate for this position, we encourage you to submit your cover letter and resume to
careers@apptio.com.

Apptio, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. Apptio, Inc. complies with applicable state and local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.