Staff Technical Product Manager

POSITION SUMMARY:

This product and solutions leadership role sits within Little Leaf Farms’ Data Technology team and works closely with engineering, data science, operations, growing, and business stakeholders to deliver applied technology solutions across our greenhouse network. The role is accountable for translating operational needs into clear requirements, coordinating cross-functional delivery, and helping build scalable tools, systems, and data products that improve how Little Leaf Farms grows, operates, measures performance, and makes decisions.

You will help guide technology delivery by balancing user needs, business priorities, technical feasibility, data quality, reliability, and long-term scalability. This role is expected to turn complex operational problems into well-structured product, engineering, analytics, and automation work that can be executed by internal teams and external partners.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Your priority is to provide technical product management leadership in setting priorities that result in tech enabled solutions increasing productivity across the company. In this role, you will:

• Work with greenhouse operations, growing, engineering, and data science leaders to identify high-value opportunities where technology, automation, analytics, and better workflows can improve productivity, quality, yield, cost, and decision-making.
• Translate operational pain points into requirements, success metrics, and delivery plans for engineering and analytics teams.
• Serve as a primary connection point between Little Leaf Farms business teams and the Data Technology organization, ensuring priorities, roadmaps, risks, tradeoffs, and timelines are clearly communicated.
• Partner with data scientists, data engineers, software engineers, automation engineers, and external vendors to deliver tools and systems that support greenhouse operations, crop performance monitoring, labor planning, equipment visibility, forecasting, reporting, and continuous improvement.
• Provide ongoing process, feature, and solution guidance to product, platform, engineering, and analytics teams, ensuring technology work remains tied to measurable business outcomes.
• Lead cross-functional projects that affect multiple sites, teams, and systems, acting as the voice of greenhouse users and operational stakeholders during solution design and implementation.
• Communicate technology initiatives, delivery plans, performance impacts, risks, and adoption needs to business leaders and senior stakeholders.
• Collaborate with functional partners and technology leadership to define requirements using lean, practical, and iterative delivery principles.
• Organize project teams made up of internal subject-matter experts, engineering resources, data science contributors, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Manage execution across multiple interdependent projects, helping unblock teams, clarify priorities, resolve dependencies, and escalate risks when needed.
• Continuously adapt product roadmaps based on user feedback, operational learnings, data quality findings, pilot results, and kaizen outcomes.
• Coordinate intake, prioritization, delivery, and adoption of product features, analytics tools, automation capabilities, dashboards, integrations, and operational applications.
• Support development of Data Technology strategy and roadmaps for greenhouse systems, data platforms, analytics, sensor networks, automation, AI/ML, and operational decision-support tools.
• Assist with financial pacing, vendor coordination, resource planning, and prioritization of investments tied to technology-enabled business value.
• Lead critical initiatives for the business where technology, data, engineering, and operations must come together to solve complex problems.
• Build strong partnerships across Little Leaf Farms’ Data Technology, Growing, Operations, Engineering, Food Safety, Supply Chain, Finance, and site leadership teams.
• Identify gaps in critical processes and replace manual, inconsistent, or inefficient workflows with contemporary solutions, including automation, analytics, AI/ML, connected devices, and scalable software tools.

The foregoing statements describe the general purpose and responsibilities assigned to this job and are not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties that may be assigned or skills that may be required.

REQUIRED EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE, AND SKILLS:

• Minimum 8 years of experience in technical product management, technology delivery, automation, operations technology, or related IT/product leadership roles.
• At least 4 years of experience as a software engineer

Desired Characteristics/Functional Expertise

• Strong focus on outcomes as success metrics, comfort with cross-functional teams, and align teams around shared business and technology goals.
• Ability to synthesize input from operations, engineering, data science, and leadership into clear priorities, requirements, and executive-ready updates
• Ability to translate technical questions to stakeholders
• Equipped with frameworks to put structure around complex problems and move work forward with limited direction.
• Demonstrated interest in current and emerging technologies, including data platforms, automation, AI/ML, computer vision, sensor systems, controls, reporting, workflow tools, and operational software.
• Experience leading teams or initiatives in an iterative product, software, analytics, or technology delivery environment using Agile, lean, or similar delivery methods.
• Consistently measures delivery progress against commitments and business outcomes, with a focus on adoption, quality, reliability, and measurable value.
• Proficiency with tools that support product delivery, project management, analytics, and collaboration such as Azure DevOps, Jira, Smartsheet, Power BI, Microsoft 365, Teams, Planner, or similar platforms.
• Able to identify risks, misalignment, and delivery roadblocks early, then course-correct or escalate appropriately.
• Comfortable working with data scientists and engineers to define metrics, validate assumptions, interpret results, and translate analytical findings into operational action.

Desired Domain Experience

• Understanding of how technology and data can support agricultural operations, crop performance, labor efficiency, quality, cost, reliability, and business decision-making.
• Ability to learn and translate operational workflows, user pain points, and site-specific constraints into scalable technology solutions.
• Awareness of challenges in controlled environment agriculture, fresh food production, manufacturing, logistics, and asset-intensive operations.
• Knowledge of market technologies and vendor solutions, with the ability to contribute to buy-versus-build recommendations, MVP scope decisions, pilot design, and implementation planning.
• Experience mentoring or guiding team members, helping junior contributors understand business context, delivery expectations, and practical problem-solving approaches.