Product Owner

Coursedog

14h•$90,000 - $120,000•Remote

About The Position

As a Product Owner at Coursedog, you'll play a critical role in translating product strategy into high-quality execution, serving as the connective tissue between vision and delivery. Reporting directly to the Senior Product Manager, you'll partner closely with engineering, design, and internal stakeholders to own three high-priority domains: our design system and accessibility standards, our AI product roadmap rollout, and platform stability. This is not a ticket-writing role. You'll write real specs and PRDs, build wireframes and clickable prototypes, own prioritization for your focus areas, and take end-to-end accountability from development through rollout. If you're technically grounded, execution-oriented, and energized by working shoulder-to-shoulder with engineers to ship meaningful product — this role is for you. This position offers a competitive base salary between $90,000-$120,000, based on experience and qualifications. The role also includes a performance-based variable compensation component, bringing total on-target earnings (OTE) to $100,000-$130,000 when performance objectives are achieved.

Requirements

1–3+ years of experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager in an Agile SaaS environment, with a proven track record of managing backlogs and shipping software
Technical or analytics background — you're comfortable in conversations with engineers, can read data fluently, and understand how software is built
Direct, hands-on experience collaborating with engineering teams; engineers trust you and you earn that trust through clarity and follow-through
Experience writing real specs and PRDs — not just user stories, but detailed, reasoned documentation that gives engineering what they need to execute
Ability to create wireframes or clickable prototypes (Figma or equivalent)
Exceptional communication skills and a proactive, resourceful working style
Comfort operating in fast-paced environments with evolving priorities

Nice To Haves

Experience in higher education or education technology; familiarity with university administrative workflows (curriculum management, academic approvals, catalog publishing, etc.) is a meaningful plus
Client-facing experience — you’ve worked directly with external customers, institutional stakeholders, or implementation teams and are comfortable translating user needs into product improvements
Exposure to AI/ML product development, including prior experience shipping AI-powered features or collaborating with engineering teams integrating AI capabilities into a product
Accessibility experience, including familiarity with WCAG standards, accessibility testing practices, or building products used across diverse user populations
Developer-facing documentation experience, such as creating API documentation, integration guides, SDK documentation, or other technical resources used by developers or partners
Experience triaging and managing a bug backlog, including coordinating with engineering teams to prioritize defects, balance stability work with feature delivery, and maintain product quality
Experience working on platform performance and reliability initiatives, such as improving application performance, supporting stability improvements, or prioritizing technical debt and infrastructure work
Experience leading developer experience initiatives, familiarity with platform products or developer ecosystems

Responsibilities

Write detailed PRDs and specs for epics, translating strategic product goals into clear, well-defined User Stories with testable acceptance criteria
Own prioritization for your focus areas in close collaboration with the Head of Platform, ensuring alignment with roadmap priorities and our Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC)
Partner with engineering to refine and sequence the backlog, ensuring the team always has well-prepared, well-understood work ahead of them
Act as the first line of triage for product issues, validating and integrating bugs into the development backlog as appropriate
Uphold a strong "Definition of Done" to ensure quality and readiness for release
Collaborate with design to create wireframes and clickable prototypes to communicate product concepts, validate design direction, and accelerate engineering handoff
Partner closely with our design team to ensure UX consistency, accessibility, and quality within Coursedog's design system
Own your product areas from discovery through development and rollout — you're accountable for the outcome, not just the ticket
Serve as the primary point of contact for your development team on product-related questions, resolving ambiguities quickly so engineering stays unblocked
Support the execution of the product roadmap by ensuring User Stories and Epics are consistently delivered against defined timelines and quality standards.
Monitor post-release performance and iterate based on feedback and product metrics
Represent the voice of the customer and product in team ceremonies and cross-functional discussions
Communicate feature updates and release details to internal stakeholders including Customer Success, Sales, and Support
Gather insights from customers and internal teams to inform backlog refinement and future iterations
Support implementations for early-stage products by serving as a product expert, gathering feedback, and clarifying functionality for implementation teams.
Actively lean in where needed to maximize the value delivered by the product, which may include supporting sales enablement with feature details, contributing to user documentation, or providing internal feature demos.
Step in where needed to support the product team, flexibly responding to evolving priorities.
Lead the rollout of Coursedog's design system across the platform, with a focus on achieving accessibility standards.
Partner with design and engineering to drive consistent, compliant component adoption at scale — ensuring our platform works for every user at every institution.
Own the execution of four major AI feature initiatives planned for this cycle.
Working closely with the Director of Product and engineering, you'll break complex AI-powered capabilities into shippable increments, maintain delivery momentum, and ensure we're building toward Coursedog's intelligent academic operations vision.
Lead initiatives to reduce bugs and eliminate technical debt, improving reliability and performance for our 400+ university partners.
You'll sequence stability work alongside feature delivery, partner with engineering on principled prioritization decisions, and champion a healthy, scalable platform foundation.