Senior Product Manager

About Nava

Nava is a consultancy and public benefit corporation working to make government services simple and effective. Since 2015, federal, state, and local agencies have trusted Nava to help solve highly scrutinized technology modernization challenges.

As a client services company, we guide agencies constrained by legacy systems to a future with sharp user experiences built on secure, reliable, fault-tolerant cloud infrastructure. We bill for our time, offering our expertise and problem-solving approach to help our government partners enhance their digital products and services. People are at the heart of our work, from members of the public who rely on benefit programs to government agency staff.

Through human-centered design and modern engineering best practices, we help our government partners understand user needs and deliver on their missions more effectively. This focus gives everyone at Nava the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, impactful, and deeply connected to public good.

Please note: the level of the role will be determined by Nava leadership based on experience and skillset.

Position summary

Nava is at the forefront of reimagining how our government serves its people, and we’re looking for a Product Manager to drive our vision forward.

You'll help us execute our mission of reimagining the digital services our government provides. Working directly with government partners and across Nava’s engineering, design, and business teams, you’ll create experiences that improve the lives of millions of Americans. You care deeply about end users and are passionate about crafting simple and usable solutions.

You'll work with government partners and cross-functional teams of engineers, designers, and project managers to set direction, scope product features, remove obstacles and barriers, and assess the business impact on a government contract.

You will be uniquely positioned and empowered to make a huge impact on Nava's mission to reimagine how our government serves its people.

You think holistically and take pride in working through highly ambiguous situations to deliver value to users. You have a strong bias towards action when faced with incomplete information and communicate transparently to build consensus internally and externally.

What you'll do

• Define the vision, goals, and measures of success for the products and services you manage
• Work with designers, business analysts, and technical leads to discover and synthesize market research, user needs, business requirements, and technical approaches
• Define the direction, scope, and priority of projects, from high-level initiatives to specific features, user stories, and business metrics
• Work closely with cross-functional teams to develop and ship projects
• Proactively socialize, iterate on, and build buy-in for product initiatives with the team, government partners, and other contractors
• Collaborate with the project management team to prioritize roadmaps and inbound units of work
• Represent Nava’s outcome-centric and user-centric approach in discovery meetings with agencies and contractors
• Understand and communicate the needs of end users and population segments we serve and government partners we work with Measure product progress toward business goals or user needs and translate data insights into action
• Make tactical decisions to improve the design, define requirements, and generate stakeholder buy-in for our desired path forward
• Required skills
• Demonstrated experience (10+ years) managing cloud-based products or platforms within federal agencies or similarly regulated environments
• Proven ability to lead cross functional teams and facilitate collaboration across government and contractor organizations
• Strong communication skills for briefing senior leadership, documenting decisions, and engaging diverse stakeholder groups
• Strong understanding of cloud architectures, shared responsibility models, and cloud security frameworks
• Familiarity with AWS, Azure, or other FedRAMP 20x authorized cloud environments
• Ability to interpret security controls, compliance requirements, and technical documentation to inform product decisions
• Experience working within federal IT governance structures, including ATO processes, continuous monitoring, and enterprise architecture reviews
• Understanding of ED/FSA mission, systems, and regulatory environment preferred
• Relevant certifications strongly desired include Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or equivalent Agile certification, Project Management Professional (PMP) or PMI ACP, ITIL Foundation, Cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, or equivalent), Security or compliance certifications (e.g., Security+, CCSP), etc
• Bachelor’s degree required in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration,Public Administration, Engineering, or a related field. Advanced degree preferred