Principal, Product Manager - Canada

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Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, or equivalent work experience and education; Master’s degree is a plus.
• Preference will be given to candidates with experience in ML/AI, development or technical roles, or experience in Taxation and Accounting technology.
• Customer obsession and empathy: proven ability to work backward from customer needs to inform product vision and strategy, ensuring products deliver real impact and address pain points. Skilled at identifying transformation opportunities based on customer insights.
• Bias for action and results: strong track record of delivering results with urgency, quickly iterating on products, and making data-driven decisions. Experienced in owning the product lifecycle from ideation to launch, ensuring continuous improvement based on feedback and key impact metrics.
• Fail fast: embraces rapid iteration, learning from failures, and improving products continuously. Skilled in refining product launch mechanisms and tracking impact metrics to drive product improvements. Adapts quickly, adjusts priorities based on data, and recommends necessary pivots.
• Product strategy: Proven ability to influence strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives. Proactively develops and communicates product vision, collaborating with Engineering and relevant partners to create a prioritized roadmap that delivers measurable impact.
• Effective communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to influence and maintain relationships with leadership, partner firms, and clients.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Experienced in aligning cross-functional teams (at minimum, Engineering, and Product Design) to execute cohesive strategies. Manages dependencies between product areas to ensure alignment and smooth execution.
• Technical acumen (preferred but not mandatory): Strong understanding of AI-powered solutions and partnering with AI Engineering on ML/LLM experiments. Skilled in integrating technologies to create efficient, cost-reducing solutions within accounting workflows.
• Industry knowledge (preferred but not mandatory): Deep understanding of accounting workflows and tax preparation processes. Experience with AI-powered tools in these fields is a plus. Able to communicate complex AI concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

• Being a strong influencer of Ascend’s AI strategy, in partnership with the rest of the AI Team.
• Working backward from customer needs, develop and communicate your product vision to Ascend leadership and the AI team
• Develop a 12-month prioritized roadmap in collaboration with Engineering.
• Own the product lifecycle for your product area, from ideation to launch, ensuring continuous iteration and improvement.
• Identify and drive large-scale transformation opportunities within your product area.
• Develop and execute product strategies that enhance Ascend’s operating margins.
• Align and manage dependencies between product areas to ensure a cohesive roadmap.
• Provide clear, structured input to Engineering to ensure smooth product development.
• Ensure Engineering priorities align with business objectives.
• Develop strong ML/LLM hypotheses based on customer research and deep industry understanding.
• Partner with AI Engineering to define and prioritize ML/LLM experiments.
• Improve and iterate on product launch mechanisms while defining and tracking key metrics post-launch to drive continuous improvement.
• Communicate outcomes clearly, adjust priorities based on results, escalate and recommend pivots when needed.