Product Manager (Product) – Authentic Jobs
Job Description
About Planning Center
Planning Center, established in 2006, has grown to support over 70,000 churches worldwide. As an independent company, we pride ourselves on being debt-free with no outside investors. Churches use our tools to communicate and connect with their congregations, organize information, and coordinate events. We’re committed to building great products that solve real problems using web and mobile products.
Our team enjoys the flexibility of remote work, utilizing tools like Asana, Slack, Notion, and Zoom for collaboration. We gather quarterly at our main office in Carlsbad, CA, fostering our work relationships.
About the Work
We are seeking a Product Manager who is a self-professed “product nerd” experienced in nurturing digital products, ideally within a software company. This role involves guiding product development and overseeing its success under the mentorship of an Area Product Manager (APM). Responsibilities include, but aren’t limited to:
- Develop and prioritize work to ensure effective production, using qualitative and quantitative data for decision-making.
- Engage in customer interviews to understand their challenges and workflows.
Collaborate with UX Design Team on mockups, and with the Engineering Manager to balance trade-offs and create actionable plans. - Embrace leadership and communication skills to encourage timely shipping with a focus on iteration and scope management.
- Proactively communicate changes to teams like support, documentation, and marketing.
- Address and prioritize bugs in collaboration with the Engineering Manager.
- Contribute to projects, collaborate with other PMs, and utilize user data to enhance product impact.
- Communicate vision and strategy effectively to a broad audience.
Who We Look For
We offer a culture that emphasizes continuous learning, work-life balance, and a meaningful impact on our customer community. Our Core Values shape our work:
Engage with Humility – We actively participate with openness and receptiveness. We are ready to listen, learn, and speak thoughtfully and kindly—regardless of skill level, expertise, or place on the org chart.
Invest in our team – We give our time and energy to our team’s success—improving collaboration with effective communication, making space for diverse perspectives, sharing knowledge, and asking questions.
Do Our Best Work – We aspire to do our best possible work—continually looking for ways to improve the quality of our individual output and contribute to our team’s overall success and growth.
Focus on Customer Impact – We advocate for our customer’s best interests in our decision-making—we can trace the goal of every project back to creating positive value for our customers.
Think Holistically, Work Iteratively – We focus on taking practical steps towards our goals with an awareness of the broader context—thinking big, working small.
We believe the strongest teams comprise people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, and we are committed to cultivating that diversity here at Planning Center. We’re building an inclusive, supportive place for you to do your best work. You’ll join a company where your contributions are valued and your well-being matters.
The Hiring Process
During the hiring process, you’ll have a chance to interact with several team members. We strongly encourage you to bring any questions to anybody you interact with. You’re interviewing us as much as we’re interviewing you.
Applications will be accepted until 9AM PST on December 4th, 2023. We aim to have a final decision made by 3PM PST on December 19th, 2023. Our offices will be closed from December 22nd until January 2, 2024, so a start date will land on January 15th, 2024, or a bit later, depending on the new hire’s needs.
Below is an outline of our hiring process.
Step one: Apply with a resume and cover letter. Your cover letter should speak directly to your interest in this position. We want to know what got you into product management, how your experience has set you up for success in this role, and why you want to join our team.
Step two: Initial Zoom screen with our recruiter to get to know one another and discuss work and culture.
Step three: A few questions specific to Planning Center and a product-thinking exercise to assess your approach and get a rough understanding of your experience and skills
Step four: Team interview with a few managers (We’ll discuss your exercise and ask deeper questions about your work history and approach to product)
Step five: In-person interview (flying to our Carlsbad, CA offices)
Step six: Pending all goes well, an offer will be extended
Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet ~60% of the criteria, women and those in underrepresented groups in tech, tend to apply only when they check every box. If you’re unsure if your experience qualifies strong competency, we’d still love to hear from you and see if you’re a good fit!
Requirements
For Hiring
- Full-time resident in the United States
- Eligible to work in the United States
For the Work Itself
- Experience: Minimum of 1 year as a Product Manager or Product Owner in a software company within the last three years. Experience in church software, donation management, or finance is a plus.
- Skills: Strong in product management, with a keen ability to prioritize features, manage team dynamics, and scope projects effectively. Familiarity with methodologies like Agile, ShapeUp, or Waterfall is desirable.
- Characteristics: Passionate, collaborative, and inquisitive with the ability to engage with humility, invest in our team, focus on customer impact, and work iteratively.
Benefits
We love our team. It’s one of the core pillars we work off of every day, which is why we take care of you as best we can. Here are a few highlights, but you can find all of our benefits here.
Get paid
We pay in the top 10% of the New York City rates (no matter where you live), contribute to your 401k, provide a charitable giving match of up to $2,000 a year, have a generous allowance for continued education, and offer a co-working stipend. The annual salary range for this position is $130,800 – $168,200.
Get out
Enjoy paid Fridays off in the summer, every other Friday off the rest of the year, a month-long sabbatical every five years, one week off between Christmas and New Years, one week off each year to serve with a non-profit, and two weeks paid vacation each year, increasing to three over time.
Be healthy
Generous paid sick time, $200 monthly for physical fitness and mental health, 95% medical and 100% dental premium health coverage.