Microsoft’s Developer Division (“DevDiv”) is committed to empowering every developer on the planet to achieve more.  Part of that mission is to ensure equitable access to any learner who wants to discover and use code to solve big problems. Join DevDiv’s Education Team to inspire new generations of technology creators with easy-to-use industry-grade tools, inclusive computer science curriculum and exciting learning experiences. 

As technology becomes more ubiquitous, complex, and essential in business and society, the global imperative for technical skills and computing education becomes more urgent as well.  We believe that everyone should have access to foundational computing skills to participate and flourish in our digital economy. We’re looking for a PM to join our team ensuring human insight – at the individual and market level – is at the center of our education strategy, improving the value students/educators find in our offerings, and how they feel using them. We aspire to help address retention, diversity, and persistence in computing through programs, partnerships, and products like MakeCode and Visual Studio Code.

The education market includes multiple audiences, but this role will focus initially on our direct-to-student and through-educator offerings which includes creating a product progression for learners of all ages.  If you are passionate about helping students and educators, and making learning computer science fun and non-scary, read on!

DDJL

Responsibilities

As an Education Product Manager, your primary responsibility will be to create end-to-end experiences for students learning to code.  Your day-to-day responsibilities may include:

Driving product strategy through scoping exploratory and iterative research, coordinating, and leading the execution of multiple projects in furtherance of our priorities and accessibility standards

Observing, listening, and learning about how students are currently learning computer science, the challenges they’re facing and understanding their motivations

Understanding the competitive landscape, framing problems we want to go after, and mapping comprehensive student/professor journeys

Defining and prioritizing end-to-end direct-to-student scenarios, roadmap, and experiences including co-creation with diverse cohorts of customers

Engage and represent Microsoft to leading academic institutions; conduct and raise awareness of our research within the academic community

Assisting with inclusive curriculum development efforts

Working across design and engineering teams to implement features and capabilities

Leveraging data and analytics to capture customer insights and key results

Communicating feature requirements and progress to all stakeholders

Communicating with customers via blog posts, videos, documentation, and engaging in open-source forums

Creating high-level holistic student-centric narratives(s) for multiple end-to-end scenarios

Proactively identifying creative solutions and solving ambiguous problems in an autonomous way

Help drive  Horizon 2/3 envisioning work

Qualifications

Required qualifications:

7+ years of experience in software development, product/program management, or similar role delivering platform or service features ideally for educational purposes

Strong verbal and written communication skills

Familiarity and experience building out reports/dashboards and manipulating data

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science

Experience with developer tools – ideally Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, or GitHub

A solid track record of driving strategic insight AND the ability to move others from insight to execution

Preferred qualifications:

Understanding and empathy of students learning computer science

Growth mindset with a desire to continually learn and apply new skills to a broad range of projects

Possess excellent cross group and interpersonal skills necessary to articulate the business and customer needs

Proven ability to collaborate across groups and disciplines to drive results

This is a great opportunity to impact millions of students worldwide by helping open doors and make the field of computing more diverse and equitable to anyone who wants to learn.  We are looking for candidates who:

Are problem solvers

Enjoy wearing multiple hats

Make things happen

Are equally comfortable articulating the big picture and refining the small details

Are customer and data obsessed

Are a systems thinker with the ability to take a holistic view to planning, research, and design

Love learning

Push for clarity and simplicity

Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: 

Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.