Senior Product Manager (Student Safety)

Do you want to work hard alongside smart and talented product managers, engineers, and designers every day? Do you excel when you are smack in the middle of a challenging project, thrive when things get complex, and yawn when you don’t have a hard problem to solve?  Do you take pride in your ability to create products that deliver real customer value? Do you have a way of seeing problems in a way that others don’t?

If yes, then join our team as we build awesome software for schools. Our team is the perfect blend of the stability of a larger company with the agility and speed of a startup.

At Lightspeed Systems® we are on a mission to power exceptional schools where students are safe and engaged. We give school staff, students, and parents the tools to ensure that devices are used for their intended purpose — to educate.

Our Senior Product Managers are responsible for driving product initiatives from inception through execution. Working with your lean product and agile development toolkit, you’ll work with stakeholders and customers to define product strategy, create roadmaps, and then work with the development team to iteratively build and launch features and products.

You must possess a unique blend of business and technical sophistication; a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality. You must enjoy spending time understanding the industry, the market, and to empathize with the customers and their problems, and then relish the ability to translate opportunities into working software.

We are looking for a Senior Product Manager to work on Lightspeed’s Safety products. These products help to monitor the well-being of students and to provide alerts for school staff to follow up on any concerning behavior.

NOTE:

• This is a hybrid position, and several days each week will be required onsite at our Austin, Texas headquarters, located near Dripping Springs.
• Sponsorship is not available for this position.

ABOUT THE ROLE

• Manage the entire product life cycle from introduction to growth, to maturity, and back again
• Bring new products to market while balancing existing ones
• Set the strategy, vision, and roadmap for your products
• Practice lean and agile product methodologies—experiment, measure, iterate, and drive outcomes that matter
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams—engineering, design, data, marketing, and sales—to define requirements, refine priorities, and deliver high-quality solutions that make a real impact for schools.
• Masterfully communicate product vision and progress to all stakeholders—Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, Support, and Leadership—ensuring clear alignment at every level
• Understand market trends, competitive offerings, and customer feedback to inform roadmap decisions and stay ahead of the curve
• Have rock solid confidence and calmness to lead meaningful, high-stakes products with grace and conviction
• Partner with engineering and data teams to translate insights and feedback into actionable improvements and scalable solutions
• Take full ownership of results—from the smallest story to the largest strategic initiative—and drive outcomes with confidence and accountability
• Champion AI-forward thinking across your product area—actively evaluate and integrate AI/ML capabilities to drive innovation and deliver smarter, more effective tools for schools

ABOUT YOU – KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES

• Have a growth mindset and know what that really means in practice—you seek feedback, learn from failure, and keep raising the bar for yourself and your team.
• Understand markets, competition, and user requirements deeply.
• Are always flexible and adaptable as you go in and out of full autonomy and then into deep collaboration.
• Relish the opportunity to be an integral part of a team, but also like to roll your sleeves up and do the daily work of building something great.
• Can make quick work of requirements and can get everyone in alignment with meaningful meetings and simple written records
• Can conduct user story mapping sessions in your sleep.
• Ability to think holistically, in a design thinking and lean fashion, with a sharp eye for detail and consistency.
• Thoroughly believes that the devil is in the details and is confident they can get those details right.
• Are technically fluent—you can converse easily with engineers about APIs, integrations, on-device agents, and networking, and translate that into clear product direction.
• Are curious, analytical, and data-informed—comfortable using data to guide decisions, validate direction, and measure outcomes
• Are obsessed with empathizing with and understanding the customer.
• Can manage and prioritize multiple projects simultaneously, from concepts to deliverables.
• Comfortable with feedback and adapts quickly to changing information.
• Experience working in a deadline-driven atmosphere.
• Have a proven track record of delivering quality products and features under all circumstances, whether you had 5 months, or 5 days to accomplish the goal.
• Understand how to juggle multiple stakeholder perspectives and personalities with grace and skill
• Make everyone feel heard and understood
• Ability to present complex technical information non-technical audiences in a way that they will understand.
• A compelling and unique point of view.
• Are AI-forward: you actively use AI tools in your own workflow, understand how AI/ML features get built, and can identify where AI creates leverage for your products and your team

NEED TO HAVE

• 5+ years experience as a Product Manager/leader in a product capacity.
• Bachelors degree
• A deep interest in education and student safety.

NICE TO HAVE

• SAAS experience
• Education experience
• Experience at a company in their growth phase
• Background as a developer
• B2B Product experience
• Background in counseling, psychology, mental health, or safety related field

ABOUT US

With more than 25 years of serving education, Lightspeed Systems delivers the most in-depth visibility and control to power exceptional schools where students are safe and engaged; technology is compliant and easily managed; and resources are secure and optimized. Purpose-built for school networks and devices, Lightspeed’s cloud-managed solutions include the most effective web filtering, student safety monitoring, classroom management, device management, and data analytics software available. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with a European office in London, UK, Lightspeed serves over 23 million students across 31,000 schools in 43 countries, utilizing 15 million devices. Learn more at www.lightspeedsystems.com.

We love our employees, and we show it. Our benefits and perks are built to support your overall wellbeing—at work and beyond. Offerings vary by country.

ABOUT OUR ATX HQ

If your role includes spending time onsite, you will LOVE being at the ranch. Our uniquely Lightspeed (and totally Texas) corporate headquarters has everything Lightspeeders need to get the job done – and a whole lot more.

• 15,000 sq. ft. of open work area, offices, and huddle rooms
• Snacks galore and a private chef serving up lunch Tuesday through Thursday every week
• A state-of-the-art fitness center (with outfitted locker rooms)
• Physical therapist onsite regularly
• Indoor and outdoor casual collaboration spots
• Pet-friendly office environment
• A golf simulator, go-carts, shuffleboard, corn hole, and MORE fun

All within 31 sprawling acres of Live Oak trees that foster a natural habitat for local wildlife. It is not uncommon to be greeted daily by whitetail deer. (Maybe it wants to join your meeting?)

Lightspeed Systems is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to a work environment that supports, inspires, and respects all individuals and in which personnel processes are merit-based and applied without discrimination on the basis of race, color religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, disability, national or ethnic origin, military service status, or other protected characteristic.