Director, Product (Higher Education Assessments)

Anywhere

Posted 5 months ago

Be a part of Acuity Insights’ startup-to-scaleup journey as the strategic and functional Product Management leader for our higher education assessments product family.

We’re seeking a purpose-driven, hands-on product leader with deep expertise in product management and experience in product strategy building, roadmap development, GTM and PDLC to join us as Director of Product.

What We’re Building

Imagine a world powered by everyone’s full potential.

At Acuity Insights, it’s the future we envision and strive to build.

Our company was founded on the need for a higher education admissions method that looks beyond academic performance and considers the whole student—their unique qualities, experiences, and strengths.

Today, our solutions help discover and develop potential, supporting holistic success for students, education programs, and higher education institutions – from admission to graduation.

With our core assessment product, Casper, we help education programs create a balanced and fair admission process by considering an applicant’s soft skills, creating a more diverse student body and vibrant learning environment that graduates better professionals.

With our core program experience product, One45, we deliver education management technology that helps streamline and improve the processes needed to train and graduate future doctors, nurses, and other health professionals.

With our data platform, Analytics, we power insights by integrating data and delivering dashboards and reports that enable confident, real-time decisions that improve program and student performance.

Acuity Insights is at a new growth stage. Our roots are planted firmly in medical and health science professions. We are expanding into other professional disciplines, including engineering and business, and balancing the support for our core products with innovation in a fast-changing market landscape.

Opportunity & Impact

As Director of Product (Assessments), you’ll provide strategic and functional leadership for our Assessment family of products, which currently includes Casper (measures soft skills), Duet (measures values-alignment), Snapshot (measures verbal and non-verbal communication), and Formative (measures professionalism over time).

In this product leadership role, you’ll help us ethically and responsibly navigate our business challenges, drive revenue growth, monitor product resources, including profit and loss, and introduce new assessment offerings to the market.

As a Player-Coach, you’ll lead a lean team that includes a Product Manager and a Product Marketer. You get to product manage Casper through the next phase of its product lifecycle, leading through discovery to go-to-market and ongoing support. As an expert product management practitioner, you’ll coach and mentor team members to thrive in their roles and guide them to career progression.

As a Director of Product at Acuity, you’ll report to Anju Visen-Singh (VP, Product and Marketing) and partner with Reham Fawad (Director of Product – Program Experience) to establish a consistent PDLC process and scale our Product Management function. You’ll also collaborate closely with our Product Design and Operations, Engineering, and Research Teams, driving an integrated and holistic approach to our entire product portfolio.

Your areas of ownership and accountability include:

Strategy & Vision

Developing Assessment product strategy and roadmap to drive business impact and support revenue growth alongside leadership.
Using data, market insights, and intuition to tell stories that inform and support healthy and sustainable decisions that balance customer needs with market-driven innovation.
Providing input on the overall Acuity Product vision and strategy in partnership with the VP of Product & Marketing and other senior leadership.

Execution & Implementation

Enabling delivery of product strategy, plan and roadmap with product technology and leading practices.
Bringing more accountability and strategic business/P&L focus related to our products to improve performance.
Leading focused execution and reporting through the internal team and technology stack (including Intercom, Pendo, and Qlik).
Partnering with the senior leadership team on company-level projects and decisions that support the Executive team.

Leadership & Team Management

Leading an empowered product team.
Teaching your team new and creative ways to learn from our customers.
Guiding and coaching your team and overseeing the building & execution of plans for your team members.

Partnership & Collaboration

Actively contributing to achieving shared OKRs as part of a cross-functional team with Product Design and Operations, Research, Marketing and Engineering.
Building and nurturing partnerships with leaders and collaborators from other functions, including Finance, Sales, Customer Success, and Casper Operations.
Seeking input and listening to different perspectives across the organization to deepen your understanding of the business, evolve your opinions, and inform decisions.

To thrive in this role, you:

Are a Product Management practitioner with experience in building product strategy and roadmaps, PDLC and bringing B2B and B2C products to market in partnership with other functions, like Research, Software Engineering, Marketing, Sales and Customer Success.
Helped operate and scale a product function, leading product teams as a Group Product Manager, Director of Product or other leadership role, and fostered a product-centric culture focused on market needs and business value creation.
Have a knack for data-driven storytelling, knowing what constitutes good data, and leveraging product analytics tools like Pendo to tell the story around what’s working, what isn’t, and what you instinctively know will and won’t work.
Are experienced and comfortable talking about failures and the wisdom you gained from them, like product sunsets.
Bring an outcomes-oriented mindset and flexibility to balance following processes and getting things done to drive business outcomes.
Had a chance to work in multiple companies or in non-product roles, giving you a broader perspective on business and how a product addresses problems in the market.

To thrive in our work environment, you are:

Caring toward people, whether they are team members or external partners. You take time to listen, understand and empathize. You don’t hesitate to provide constructive feedback and enjoy sharing your knowledge and advice to help others learn and grow.
Curious by nature and open to possibilities and different viewpoints. You like exploring, experimenting, asking questions, listening, and learning from other people’s perspectives.
Driven to help realize our vision and mission, problem-solve independently and with team members and other partners, continuously seeking to grow your knowledge and improve your skills and practices.
Resilient, you keep going and bounce back from challenges, welcome and embrace the change necessary to scale a company successfully.
Self-aware, knowing your strengths, gaps, emotions and values, fueling continuous personal and professional growth.
Motivated by purposeful work that has a meaningful impact and aligns with your values and interests.

Selection Process

We review every application. We consider all your professional experiences and how you have applied your skills and knowledge to add value and make an impact. We also look for evidence that you share our core values (caring, curious, and driven) and have an interest in helping bring people’s potential to life.

To ensure a fair process, you will receive equal consideration whether you apply, get introduced as a referral, or directly contact the manager or recruiter for this role.

Applicants who do not live in Canada or have a work permit will automatically be screened out.

Interview Process

We have designed our interview process to be a two-way discovery and create space for meaningful conversations.

We want to get to know you personally and professionally, understand your career journey and experiences, relevant skills, professional interests and priorities, and assess for alignment with our business needs and what we can offer you.

We also want you to have the information you need to make an informed decision about this opportunity. That’s why we encourage you to stay curious and ask questions every step of the way.

Here are the steps you can expect:

Application Review. A human reviews your application for potential and fit.
Intro Chat with Recruiter. Have a 60-minute phone call during which you get to share your professional journey and interests and learn in-depth about the company, culture, team, and compensation.
Meet Manager & Peer. Spend up to 180 minutes on a video call with your potential future manager and peer to discuss your relevant work experiences and learn in-depth about the day-to-day of the team and role.
Prepare a Case Study. Prepare a case study on a product you’ve led from idea to launch and beyond.
Meet the Team & Present Case Study. Present your case study to a team of 3-4 future peers and collaborators, followed by 1-1 conversations with each team member to learn more about life at Acuity Insights.
Wait For a Decision. The Hiring Manager consolidates and evaluates feedback from the team to make a hiring decision. This typically takes 2-4 days.
Offer & Reference Check. If we find a mutual match, we’ll invite you to an offer conversation. The offer is contingent on completing a reference check.

Compensation & Benefits

Flexible and remote work. Enjoy the freedom to work from anywhere within Canada, work from abroad for up to 6 weeks per year, and configure your schedule and work hours to best suit your life.
Fair pay. Get paid fairly for your work with a salary aligned to your role, skill level, and job responsibilities, informed by internal pay equity and market data.
Prioritized rest and time off. Enjoy two weeks of disconnected vacation at year-end, self-directed vacation, extra Fridays off throughout the year, and support for medical, family, or mental health needs without financial worry.
Company equity. Become a partial owner of Acuity Insights when you join, sharing in long-term value creation and financial success through our employee stock option plan.
Investment in your growth. Access a $3,000 yearly budget for professional and personal development.
Save for retirement. Join our GRSP matching program through Wealthsimple. We match contributions up to 2% of your salary.
Support for health & wellness. Access comprehensive health benefits for yourself and your dependents through Equitable Life of Canada from Day 1 of your employment.
Growing your family. Take parental leave, regardless of your role in expanding your family, and receive a top-up for 16 weeks beyond EI benefits.

Working at Acuity Insights

Behind Acuity Insights, you’ll find a team of 130+ caring, curious, and driven individuals dedicated to our company’s success. We collaborate remotely and occasionally co-work in person across Canada and some international locations.

We are committed to fostering a work environment where everyone feels respected, valued, and well-supported. We’ve designed our processes and policies to create a sense of community and belonging, promote equity, embrace diversity, champion inclusion and encourage work-life balance so that every individual can bring their full potential.

We recognize that every person on our team is unique and has different qualities, lived experiences, strengths and life situations. Our team’s diversity is our strength. We know it contributes to a healthier work environment, enables us to build and operate a more sustainable organization, and makes us capable of delivering better business outcomes.

We encourage individuals from non-traditional backgrounds or historically marginalized and underrepresented groups to explore and apply to this role.

Thanks for considering Acuity Insights as your next employer!