Company Description
CREATIVITY IS OUR SUPERPOWER. It’s our heritage and it’s also our future. Because we don’t just make toys. We create innovative products and experiences that inspire, entertain and develop children through play. Mattel is at its best when every member of our team feels respected, included, and heard-when everyone can show up as themselves and do their best work every day. We value and share an infinite range of ideas and voices that evolve and broaden our perspectives with a reach that extends into all our brands, partners, and suppliers.
The Team:
Mattel’s Future Lab’s mission is to broaden play innovation, expand reach, and develop new business that take advantage of and respond to disruptive opportunities, ushering in an array of innovative products and play experiences that nimbly cater to the evolving needs and wants of our dynamic audiences.
Future Lab is pioneering the future of play by enabling and accelerating innovation and growth beyond Mattel’s conventional product offerings, from digitally-enhanced products to Virtual Playdates (Caribu), and from Digital Collectibles (NFTs) to The Metaverse, Future Lab will explore, incubate, develop, launch, and operate innovative play experiences.
Job Description
The Opportunity:
As Group Product Manager at Mattel’s Future Lab, you will lead our Product Management team, overseeing a variety of digital or digitally-enhanced products, helping develop and drive new and innovative business opportunities for some of the world’s largest toy brands such as Barbie and Hot Wheels – notably, this role is a combined player/coach role, bringing together both aspects of an individual contributor and those of managing and developing people.
Future Lab Product Managers set and drive long-term strategy and vision, as well as ensure the delivery of a compelling customer experience across an array of products that will pioneer the future of play, including building new connected play, virtual playdate, and Web3 products and experiences, which will be led by a talented product leader under the Vice President of Future Lab.
As Future Lab’s head of Product Management, you will work closely with your Product Management team, as well as with a broad cross-functional team of Technical Program Managers, Digital Producers, Product and User Experience Designers, Tech / Development teams, Marketing Managers, and with other internal Mattel stakeholders across the company, as well as with Mattel’s external network of strategic third-party partners and developers.
This role is a great fit for someone who thrives in a dynamic environment, and who is sensitive to the diverse perspectives of stakeholders and works with them to resolve differences. We’re looking for experienced customer-obsessed entrepreneurs and people leaders who are passionate about innovating on behalf of customers, demonstrate a high degree of ownership, and want to have fun while inventing the future.
Do you or someone you know have a passion to create products and experiences that inspire, entertain, and develop children through play?
Join us to create the future of play.
What Your Impact Will Be:
- Responsible for aligning the product management team around a single product vision and ensuring that the team works towards a common objective
- Motivating, mentoring, and coaching the product management team to reach goals and achieve deliverables
- Setting and driving overall Product strategy and vision for Future Lab as a whole, in collaboration with design, production leadership, and the head of Future Lab
- Define the long-term vision and strategy for unconventional products and play experiences, leveraging new technologies across digital, connected play, and Web3 to deliver compelling products and features to our customers
- Work with technical and non-technical stakeholders to understand and improve product features, capabilities, and KPI’s
- Ability to analyze and determine buisness viability, develop buisness projections, and manage other activities related to financial projections, including oversight and ownership over the product portfolio P&Ls
- Define and own the business metrics and KPIs for products and play experiences
- Analyze customer feedback and metrics to identify customer pain points and product feature improvement opportunities
- Build innovative concepts and successfully champion them through senior management and cross-functional team for approval and endorsement
- Driving product enhancements, new product features, and/or new product launches from start to finish
- Drive product requirement and feature definition, user stories, customer experience design, product roadmap, and prioritization
- Creating and supervising Product Requirement Documents, Market Requirement Documents, and Business Requirement Documents
- Partner across the organization to understand customer needs and influence adoption of new products and play experiences
- Collaborate with your Product Management team, Digital Producers, Design partners, and Technical Program Managers to deliver product features, creative assets, and content delivery on a timely manner
- Collaborate with our Technical Program Management team to maintain work streams and milestone deliverables to maintain commitments, manage risk, tracking progress, stakeholder reviews, and quality validation
- Validate the product roadmap utilizing data, consumer insights, and projection methods
- Collaborate with our partners across our portfolio to achieve commitments and develop more efficient delivery pipelines
- Own product updates, reports, and performance visibility across the organization
- Develop strong relationships with prospects and vendors
Qualifications
What We’re Looking For:
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or Technology (MBA or Master’s degree in a CS-related field strongly preferred)
- 8+ years of Product Management experience (planning, execution, delivery, post-release support)
- 2+ years’ experience leading and managing a team
- Experience working and shipping customer-facing software products, with strong preference experience shipping connected play (toy) products and/or games (apps, web, console, etc.)
- Experience leading cross-functional and cross-company teams to deliver products and projects on tight deadlines
- Experience coordinating complex product development cycles and software development schedules
- Strong business and financial analysis skillset, with prior experience creating financial forecasts and models, along with overall P&L management over the product portfolio
- Strong analytical and quantitative skills with demonstrable ability to use data to drive action
- Demonstrated a growth mindset by staying curious and continuously learning, embracing challenges, and improving themselves.
Preferred Requirements:
- MBA or Master’s degree in a CS-related field
- Passion for creating innovative solutions for consumers
- Ideal candidate should have consumer electronics products and/or Digital/Web3 product and/or video games knowledge
- Strong verbal and written communication skills with demonstrated experience engaging and influencing senior executives
- Familiarity with production process (Agile, Kanban, Scrum, etc.) and tools (Jira, Confluence, etc.)
Salaried: To be used for positions up to Director level:
The annual base salary range for this position is between $136k and $171k
**This range is indicative of projected hiring range, however annual base salary will be determined based on a candidate’s work location, skills and experience.
Additional Information
Don’t meet every single requirement? At Mattel we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
What It’s Like to Work Here:
We are a purpose driven company aiming to empower the next generation to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. We live up to our purpose employing the following behaviors:
- We collaborate: Being a part of Mattel means being part of one team with shared values and common goals. Every person counts and working closely together always brings better results. Partnership is our process and our collective capabilities is our superpower.
- We innovate: At Mattel we always aim to find new and better ways to create innovative products and experiences. No matter where you work in the organization, you can always make a difference and have real impact. We welcome new ideas and value new initiatives that challenge conventional thinking.
- We execute: We are a performance driven company. We strive for excellence and are focused on pursuing best in class outcomes. We believe in accountability and ownership and know that our people are at their best when they are empowered to create and deliver results.
Our Approach to Flexible Work:
We embrace a flexible work model designed to empower a culture of growth, optimism, and wellbeing, where every employee can reach their full potential. Combining purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility, our focus is to optimize performance and drive connection for moments that matter.
Who We Are:
Mattel is a leading global toy company and owner of one of the strongest catalogs of children’s and family entertainment franchises in the world. We create innovative products and experiences that inspire, entertain and develop children through play. We engage consumers through our portfolio of iconic brands, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Thomas & Friends, UNO and MEGA, as well as other popular intellectual properties that we own or license in partnership with global entertainment companies. Our offerings include film and television content, gaming, music and live events. We operate in 35 locations and our products are available in more than 150 countries in collaboration with the world’s leading retail and ecommerce companies. Since its founding in 1945, Mattel is proud to be a trusted partner in empowering children to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential.
Mattel is recognized for the second year in a row as a Great Place to Work™ and as one of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators in 2022.
Visit us at https://jobs.mattel.com/ and www.instagram.com/MattelCareers.
Mattel is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer where we want you to bring your authentic self to work every day. We welcome all job seekers including minorities, females, veterans, military spouses, individuals with disabilities, and those of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
Videos To Watch
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