Software Product Manager

Software Product Manager

So you use Yelp to find where to go to dinner.  Or perhaps Rotten Tomatoes to help decide what movie to see?  Trip Advisor to decide where to vacation?  Every day you use the power of other people’s opinions, insights and experiences to make decisions.  So why don’t our veterans have those same tools available to them when decided on where to go for healthcare, job opportunities, family assistance or education and training?

Warrior Gateway’s mission is to eliminate the information barriers that keep members of the military community from connecting with the resources they need. By providing a comprehensive directory of service organizations, community feedback and volunteer opportunities as well as a knowledge base of valuable information through our G.I. Network, Warrior Gateway is aimed at easing the transition from military to civilian life and also providing support for the families of those in uniform.

Position Summary:
Warrior Gateway is seeking collaborative, roll-up-your-sleeves Software Product Manager who will be responsible for managing the product roadmap for all of Warrior Gateway’s initiatives. He or she will report to the Warrior Gateway CEO and interact heavily with the entire team.  Activities include planning iterations and releases in an Agile /Scrum development cycle, fills and prioritizes the product backlog and refines its contents on an ongoing basis, allocates resources, mitigates risks, manages scope changes, defines processes and ensures that the team adheres to these processes and ultimately ensure a timely and quality delivery.   This person will be the go-to resource for the CEO and act as his “right-hand” person for executing the product roadmap vision.  The Product Manager will also represent the stakeholder and user requirements to the development team.

The Warrior Gateway is an ambitious organization and we especially value candidates who are passionate about supporting the Warrior Gateway community and are willing to step outside of their specific job descriptions to do whatever it takes to create the best experience possible for the Warrior Gateway’s users. This position can be based in Washington, DC or San Francisco, CA, however virtual candidates will be considered.

The Product Manager oversees all aspects of meeting the projects goals using planning, monitoring, and control processes. The Product Manager is broadly responsible for coordination and completion of tasks on time and within budget, and to this end will perform a variety of tasks including setting deadlines, assigning responsibilities, and monitoring and summarizing progress of the project.  Additionally, the Product Manager collaborates with the team and aligns with the stakeholders throughout the entire release cycle, clarifies requirements, accepts the work results and is ultimately responsible for creating a smooth flow of work to the team.

Requirements:
•5+ years experience working in a consumer Internet environment (e-commerce and/or social media a plus), including 3+ years of software product management experience
•Experience working as a Product Owner in a Scrum / Agile development environment
•Experience with scope management and risk mitigation, including management of statements of work and change orders
•Demonstrated ability to balance competing business drivers and manage stakeholders, both from the customer and from internal management
•Excellent organizational and team building skills
•Experience with various requirements documentation and story writing techniques
•Experience with testing approaches for quality assurance
•Experience managing project budgets, timelines and demonstrated ability to complete projects on budget
•Experience working with an offshore development team as part of an overall project team
•Good presentation and communication skills, including the ability to convey complex technical issues to a non-technical audience
•Recent experience in managing software-as-a-service projects preferred, particularly when migrating from on-premise solutions
•B.A. or B.S. degree
•Military experience preferred

Personal Qualities:
•Exceptional communication, collaboration, leadership, and critical thinking skills.
•Ability to interact with diverse technical and non-technical groups, spanning all organizational levels.
•Excellent organizational skills.
•Ability to thrive in a dynamic, loosely structured and rapid growth environment.
•Embraces change and can adapt easily and recover from setbacks.
•Willingness to work hard and think creatively.
•Strong initiative; able to self-manage. Must be comfortable working in an unstructured, creative, and fast-paced environment

To Apply:
If you’re interested in joining the team, please send a cover letter along with your resume to resumes@warriorgateway.org.  In the cover letter, please tell us what inspires you about the Warrior Gateway and why you think you are the perfect applicant for this position.  This is a key position and a wonderful opportunity to join a growing project with a uniquely inspiring mission.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed.  They are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required of personnel so classified.

 

2012 Warrior Gateway Internships Available

So you use Yelp to find where to go to dinner.  Or perhaps Rotten Tomatoes to help decide what movie to see?  Trip Advisor to decide where to vacation?  Every day you use the power of other people’s opinions, insights and experiences to make decisions.  So why don’t our veterans have those same tools available to them when decided on where to go for healthcare, job opportunities, family assistance or education and training?

If you’re looking for an internship in a growing company that is transforming the veterans landscape, then we want to hear from you!  This internship is a hybrid role that will include assignments and learning opportunities across our strategic partnership and social media marketing groups.  It also includes supporting the CEO with various administrative tasks.

Responsibilities may include but are not limited to: General office assistance, Salesforce.com management, Google Adwords Advertising Campaigns, Market Research, Facebook Fan Page management, Twitter Follower management, Social Media marketing metrics reporting and creation of Warrior Gateway blog posts.

Expectations:

  • Minimum commitment of 20 hours per week
  • A high energy level

Roles/Responsibilities:

  • Salesforce.com data entry
  • Help grow audience for and manage CEO’s social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn accounts)
  • Help write and edit online content
  • Support ongoing marketing projects
  • Assist with additional administrative tasks

Requirements:

  • Self motivated candidate who can work independently from home
  • Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience
  • Military Experience or knowledge of the community a plus

This is a paid internship. Email all applications with a resume and cover letter to: resumes@warriorgateway.org with 2012 Internship in the subject line.  Applications without a cover letter will not be looked at nor considered.

 

Drupal Engineer

Every day we use the power of other people’s opinions, insights and experiences to make decisions.  The same way we look to Yelp to help us find where to go to dinner, Rotten Tomatoes to help us decide what movie to see or Trip Advisor on where to vacation and what hotel to stay in.   So why don’t our veterans have those same tools available to them when decided on where to go for healthcare, job opportunities, family assistance or education and training?

WarriorGateway.org is harnessing the power of technology and collaboration to help today’s veterans make better decisions about what government program or non-profit organization to go to for help.  Warrior Gateway leverages the social dimension by encouraging these “voices of the veteran” to include ratings about the quality and effectiveness of those services and to include short comments and tips to help other community members decide where to go.

We are dedicated to empowering our veterans to share their experiences and help the overall community but also, give them a voice to highlight those programs and organizations that are not meeting their needs.  Launched in March 2010, the Warrior Gateway is the only effort that is focused on providing these individuals with a forum to publically share their experiences.  It’s about time our veterans had a voice.

Warrior Gateway is growing our technology team and we are seeking a motivated Drupal engineer.  Here are the details of the position:

Tasks:

  • Lead the web application development of multiple Drupal-based web portals
  • Work on the development of our API & Platform strategy
  • Develop Drupal modules for our partners and customers
  • Work as part of agile team environment in a startup environment
  • Able to take on tasks beyond your scope of responsibilities to achieve results
  • Write code!  You will be responsible for developing features for our multiple web properties as well as the platform infrastructure

Technical Requirements:

  • You must know & love Drupal inside and out as you will be the sole engineer in this position
  • Experience managing multiple Drupal properties
  • Experience building and managing Drupal modules

“Nice to have” Requirements:

  • Mastery of XML & XML Schema
  • Experience with XPath & XQuery
  • Knowledge of MarkLogic Server and developing on the MarkLogic platform
  • Substantial experience with Linux
  • Experience building web applications using Java, Java Web Services, Javascript & JQuery
  • Experience with JPA and/or Hibernate
  • Experience with HTML,CSS and Web 2.0 elements
  • Experience with Apache and Tomcat
  • Deep experience with XML and related technologies
  • Browser-side client technologies including AJAX, HTML, CSS, cross-browser compatibility issues, performance and optimization techniques
  • Experience with agile software development (i.e.; Scrum)
  • Ability to manage and respond to changes in priorities
  • JPA/Hibernate, or similar Experience
  • REST Web Service client and/or Server
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent
  • Experience with Agile methodologies

General Requirements:

  • Disciplined engineers who will….
    • Deliver code that can be maintained and extended
    • Follow architectural guidance
    • Test their code before they deploy it
    • Complete 100% of work tasks or notify in-house team of gaps in deliverables
  • Communicative engineers who can deliver…..
    • Javadoc (or equivalent)
    • Class Diagrams
    • Flow & Sequence Diagrams
    • High Level Diagrams
    • Wiki or other site to tie work products together

Nice to have:

  • Understanding of search technologies
  • Understanding of semantic web and thesaurus management systems
  • Experience in using JQuery, Dojo, Prototype or other JavaScript frameworks

Other:

  • Interested in working for a aggressive start up with a non-profit mission
  • Interested in supporting veterans and wounded warriors; former military experience a plus
  • This position can be based anywhere in the Continental US

If you’re interested in joining the team, please provide a cover letter along with your resume.  In the cover letter, please tell us what inspires you about the Warrior Gateway and why you think you are the perfect applicant for this position.  This is a key position and a unique opportunity to join a growing organization with a uniquely inspiring mission.

Email all applications with a resume and cover letter to: resumes@warriorgateway.org with Drupal Engineer in the subject line.  Applications without a cover letter will not be looked at nor considered.

 

Year in Review and a Look Ahead to 2012

As 2011 comes to a close, it is time to reflect back on a year of impressive accomplishments and to look forward to next year’s ambitious plans.  As a young organization, I believe that 2012 will be a year of growth and maturing for Warrior Gateway as we continue to establish ourselves as a leader in the military/veteran non-profit sector.

This past year, Warrior Gateway received two significant recognitions for our work to date.  In February of this year, I was selected as one of Federal Computer Weeks Federal 100, the top executives from government, industry and academia who had the greatest impact on the government information systems community in 2010.  While the award recognizes the individual, it was the hard work of the entire Warrior Gateway team that lead to that recognition, an impressive feat for an organization that was less than 2 years old at the time of the award.  We have been nominated again this year and I am hopeful that our continued innovation will put us at the top of the list again.

In May, we were also invited to participate as part of a small working group on veterans issues by the Clinton Global Initiative – America.  The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was founded in 2005 by President Bill Clinton and is a non-partisan organization that convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.  This is the first time CGI has focused on veterans issues and I am proud that we were included as thought leaders in this space.  We have been invited back and plan on attending again in 2012.

While 2010 was focused on our launch of WarriorGateway.org, our innovative consumer web portal for veterans, 2011 will be marked as the year we revolutionized the military non-profit sector by creating the G.I. Network, the only no cost technology infrastructure for government and non-profits alike serving the military community.

We have spent most of this year developing and piloting the G.I. Network and to not spoil the public launch scheduled for mid-January let’s just say there is nothing like it available today.  With over 200,000 non-profits included in the initial launch of the G.I. Network, we are going to make a significant jump forward in helping local communities connect to the Sea of Goodwill.  We have already signed up several partners and look forward to working with them in 2012 to connect the veterans in their community with the local resources that exist to support them.

To sign up to learn more about the G.I. Network, please visit: www.GINetwork.org

My philosophy has always been to focus on achieving results and allow those results to speak for us.  Warrior Gateway will always stay primarily focused on supporting our community and achieving results and partnership rather than self-promotion.  This corporate ethos is what defines us and I believe elevates us above the others that follow the go it alone approach.  We will continue to allow our results speak for themselves and look forward to announcing even more partnerships in 2012.

Happy Holidays and have a wonderful New Year!

Software Engineering Positions

Every day we use the power of other people’s opinions, insights and experiences to make decisions.  The same way we look to Yelp to help us find where to go to dinner, Rotten Tomatoes to help us decide what movie to see or Trip Advisor on where to vacation and what hotel to stay in.   So why don’t our veterans have those same tools available to them when decided on where to go for healthcare, job opportunities, family assistance or education and training?

WarriorGateway.org is harnessing the power of technology and collaboration to help today’s veterans make better decisions about what government program or non-profit organization to go to for help.  Warrior Gateway leverages the social dimension by encouraging these “voices of the veteran” to include ratings about the quality and effectiveness of those services and to include short comments and tips to help other community members decide where to go.

We are dedicated to empowering our veterans to share their experiences and help the overall community but also, give them a voice to highlight those programs and organizations that are not meeting their needs.  Launched in March 2010, the Warrior Gateway is the only effort that is focused on providing these individuals with a forum to publically share their experiences.  It’s about time our veterans had a voice.

Warrior Gateway is growing our technology team and we are seeking motivated software engineers.  Here are the details of the positions:

Tasks:

  • Work on web application development of warriorgateway.org web portal
  • Work on the development of our API & Platform strategy
  • Work as part of agile team environment in a startup environment
  • Able to take on tasks beyond your scope of responsibilities to achieve results
  • Write code!  You will be responsible for developing features for our multiple web properties as well as the platform infrastructure

Technical Requirements:

  • Mastery of XML & XML Schema
  • Experience with XPath & XQuery
  • Knowledge of MarkLogic Server and developing on the MarkLogic platform
  • Substantial experience with Linux
  • Experience building web applications using Java, Java Web Services, Javascript & JQuery
  • Experience with JPA and/or Hibernate
  • Experience with HTML,CSS and Web 2.0 elements
  • Experience with Apache and Tomcat
  • Deep experience with XML and related technologies
  • Browser-side client technologies including AJAX, HTML, CSS, cross-browser compatibility issues, performance and optimization techniques
  • Experience with agile software development (i.e.; Scrum)
  • Ability to manage and respond to changes in priorities
  • 2 to 5 years of software engineering experience
  • 2+ years of experience building web applications using Java, Java Web Services, Javascript & JQuery
  • JPA/Hibernate, or similar Experience
  • REST Web Service client and/or Server
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent
  • Experience with Agile methodologies

General Requirements:

  • Disciplined engineers who will….
    • Deliver code that can be maintained and extended
    • Follow architectural guidance
    • Test their code before they deploy it
    • Complete 100% of work tasks or notify in-house team of gaps in deliverables
  • Communicative engineers who will deliver…..
    • Javadoc (or equivalent)
    • Class Diagrams
    • Flow & Sequence Diagrams
    • High Level Diagrams
    • Wiki or other site to tie work products together

Nice to have:

  • Understanding of search technologies
  • Understanding of semantic web and thesaurus management systems
  • Experience in using JQuery, Dojo, Prototype or other JavaScript frameworks

Other:

  • Interested in working for a aggressive start up with a non-profit mission
  • Interested in supporting veterans and wounded warriors; former military experience a plus

If you’re interested in joining the team, please provide a cover letter along with your resume.  In the cover letter, please tell us what inspires you about the Warrior Gateway and why you think you are the perfect applicant for this position.  This is a key position and a unique opportunity to join a growing organization with a uniquely inspiring mission.

Email all applications with a resume and cover letter to: resumes@warriorgateway.org with Software Engineer in the subject line.  Applications without a cover letter will not be looked at nor considered.