Group Product Manager - Top Hat

About Top Hat

Top Hat's mission is to spark better teaching and learning for a brighter world. Our vision is to make learning personal for every student.

We are looking for a Group Product Manager to own and drive the core portfolio of the Top Hat platform — product domains where instructors and students interact in and around the classroom every day. This role requires someone who can execute flawlessly while thinking strategically, build coalitions across teams, and represent the product vision to executive leadership.

You'll be responsible for key domains of the Top Hat platform, serving millions of students and thousands of instructors in higher education, leading a team of Product Managers. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role where your decisions directly influence both product strategy and business outcomes.

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Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Define and champion the long-term product vision, strategy, and roadmap for your portfolio, ensuring alignment with company objectives and market opportunities.
• Drive product-market fit and sustainable competitive advantage through continuous customer research, market analysis, and strategic positioning.
• Act as thought leader and portfolio representative to executive leadership, cross-functional partners, and external stakeholders.
• Develop compelling business cases that connect product investments to revenue, retention, and strategic value.

People Leadership & Coaching

• Own the growth of your PMs: give clear, direct feedback, run meaningful 1:1s, and help them level up against our career framework.
• Coach by asking questions rather than handing over answers — develop their judgment instead of substituting your own.
• Set direction and standards, then delegate with trust and hold people accountable to outcomes.
• Build a team and a direction strong enough to run well without you in the room.

Execution & Delivery

• Ship high-quality products on time across your portfolio, leading by example on product craft from ideation through launch and iteration.
• Move fast with strong judgment on value vs. risk tradeoffs — make swift decisions without analysis paralysis.
• Maintain technical independence: spin up MVPs quickly, pull data directly from databases, and validate hypotheses rapidly.
• Operate confidently against a seasonal academic calendar where term-start deadlines are immovable.

Cross-Functional Influence & Customer Discovery

• Lead through influence, not authority — build coalitions and align stakeholders proactively.
• Build strong partnerships with Engineering, Design, Data, GTM, Customer Success, and Marketing, and hold your position when senior stakeholders push back.
• Conduct customer discovery, using prototypes to validate ideas with real users early and often.
• Recruit customer design partners and stand up pilot programs for validation.

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Requirements

Must-Haves

• 5+ years of product management experience, with 1+ years in a management role.
• Demonstrated experience coaching and growing product managers, including those early in their careers.
• Technical fluency: Comfortable with SQL, APIs, BI tools, and AI tools. Able to spin up prototypes independently or with minimal engineering support.
• Track record of shipping complex, cross-functional products on time and at high quality.
• Reliability: You finish what you start and don't let things fall through the cracks.
• Experience building business cases with financial projections, ROI analysis, and strategic value articulation.
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools, for work or personal projects.
• Experience building/prototyping with AI tools (vibe coding) and presenting working demos.
• Experience building Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations.
• Startup and entrepreneurial mindset, comfortable leading engineers and data scientists.
• Experience working with executives and cross-functional stakeholders.

Bonus

• Experience in EdTech, SaaS, or B2B2C business models.
• History of leading integrations or complex multi-product initiatives, with strong understanding of data interoperability and ability to present a unified strategy.
• Experience with accounts, billing, provisioning, or other platform and infrastructure product areas.
• Background in mobile product management, or leading both web and native mobile surfaces in one portfolio.

What Makes You Exceptional

• You have strong opinions, loosely held — you challenge respectfully when you disagree.
• You proactively identify problems before they become blockers and act quickly to resolve them.
• You bring clarity to ambiguity: communications are clear, actionable, and well-documented.
• You love helping others grow, helping them navigate new situations and unlocking their potential.

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Why Team Members Love Working at Top Hat

• A noble mission that creates meaningful, fulfilling work
• A team that cares deeply for customers and for each other
• Flexible, remote-first work environment
• Professional learning and development for all role levels
• An awesome and welcoming Toronto HQ
• Competitive health benefits that start on day one
• Innovative PTO policy with plenty of time and space for self-care
• A chance to work with new tech like generative AI — and see the customer impact