Head of Product
Overview#
Project Nebula is an initiative to build tools that help students. The Head of Product directs strategy by figuring out what student problems we should address next and how best to address them.
The Head of Product will keep in touch with external partners including students and university staff and third parties to increase the impact and utility of Project Nebula’s projects.
The Head of Product sets the vision for the features that ought to be implemented based on their own experience and based on research done on the community. The Head of Product thinks very holistically about what Project Nebula builds and tries to prioritize what is built based on user feedback.
What We Need#
The Head of Product must be adaptable and able to learn in a fast-paced environment. The Head of Product does not have to have a strictly technical background building things, but one may help. We’re looking for someone with the following:
- A genuine desire to build things that help people
- A sense of vision
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Ability to discern broader social impacts of what is built
Any of these may additionally help:
- Ability to brainstorm and prototype experiences for users
- A user-centered perspective in building projects
- Some technical background building and designing software
What You'll Do#
The Head of Product oversees the functionality for Project Nebula’s projects and determines their feasibility from a user perspective.
For example, while the User Experience Lead would figure out how a student would associate transfer credits with their degree plan, the Head of Product would determine the core requirements for and understand the problem space for the problem domain (like researching edge cases when planning degree plans). The Engineering Lead would work with project leads who would oversee their implementation.
On a day-to-day basis: you will:
- Work with Engineering Lead to determine technical requirements to build new features
- Work with User Experience Lead to design project experiences
- Keeping in touch with Project Nebula community liaisons and other students
Responsibilities:
- Weekly meet-ups with project leads (either in person or virtual)
- Monthly Project Nebula-wide meetings
- Talk to on-campus departments, acting as a liaison for what students want
- Brainstorming new features for projects or developing entirely new projects
- Soliciting feedback from the community
- Working with Project Nebula’s Policy Consultant to consider broader impacts of what is built
- Developing a maintainable product ecosystem that encompasses the vision and values of Project Nebula
- Serving as a chief decision-maker for what Project Nebula should focus on
Expect to spend around 5 hours per week in your role.
Additionally, Project’s Nebula’s Head of Product will brainstorm new features and solicit requests for proposals from the community for new projects.
What You'll Learn#
Being the Head of Product will give you many opportunities that will help for behavioral interviews in industry. If you wanted to make your own start-up, well, this is probably the perfect role for you as you’ll gain experience working with a diverse group of people with different mindsets.
Specifically, you’ll learn:
- How to effectively distill and communicate complex ideas to others
- How to explore and elaborate on ideas
- How to design solutions to problems students are facing
- How to serve as a leader for others