Aruba OfficeConnect Product Manager

Job description

Job ID 1025305 Date posted 6/6/2018 Primary Location Santa Clara, California, United States; Roseville, California, United States Other location Santa Clara,California,United States of America Job Category Engineering Schedule Full time Shift No shift premium (United States of America)

The HPE Aruba OfficeConnect networking portfolio is targeted at the exciting Small Business customer segment.  Already a market leader in this segment, we are always striving to improve our delivery of the best networking experience to our small business customers, to enable growth for our channel partners and to expand our competitive market position.

As Product Manager for the OfficeConnect Switching portfolio you will be a key leader operating as a “mini GM” for the products/solutions you own, heavily influencing decisions across engineering, supply chain, marketing and really all aspects of the end-to-end value delivery chain.  You will work side-by-side with the product/solution development engineering team, making product feature and user interface tradeoffs on a daily basis balancing time-to-market, product cost and quality, and overall market competitiveness priorities.  You will also engage with internal and external channel managers to help drive demand and maintain a solid perspective on how your products are doing in the market including what must be done to drive greater success.  Finally, you’ll collaborate with the cross-functional team driving overall OfficeConnect strategy/portfolio planning and advocating for innovation and differentiation in our solutions to drive differentiation in the market. 

Based on a strong understanding of small business networking customer needs, the OfficeConnect Product Manager leads technical product feature definition, pricing analysis, value proposition/messaging creation, and definition of extended whole product elements including packaging, warranty policy, service/support offerings, etc.   The Product Manager also leads the creation of the initial product forecast in partnership with region PLM counterparts and partners closely with PLM and channel sales leads around the world to help drive product demand on an ongoing base. 

Key responsibilities:

·  Define target customer business outcomes through detailed and thoughtful planning, forecasting, key indicator identification, progress tracking and course correcting as needed.
·  Translate data and analytics into actionable business and strategic decisions.  
·  Directly influence product strategy and roadmap decisions in the Aruba mobile first and small business switching business unit.
·  Collaborate closely with internal and outsourced engineering/R&D partners on product/solution design and development of reliable, cost effective and high quality solutions according to defined product requirements. 
·  Assist in the development of product/solution test plans to validate designs across mechanical, electrical, firmware/software, and other engineering specifications according to define product requirements.  
·  Proactively partner with the extended PLM team to define market requirements, drive solution ecosystem delivery, and collaborate with cross-functional team members throughout the product lifecycle.   
·  Champion go-to-market outcomes and thought leadership for owned products. 
·  Master the art of evangelizing competitive product and solution messaging and marketing to the Aruba field and channel partner community, becoming a trusted advisor for demand generation.
·  Present to and communicate with all levels of the organization including sales, channel, marketing, supply chain, operations, and Aruba executives, demonstrating a strong command of subject matter and the ability to influence with polish. 
·  Conduct market research, competitive analysis, pricing analysis and business planning to help owned products and solutions win in the marketplace.
·  Become the trusted direct link among customers, channel partners and internal R&D teams in order to drive well-defined market requirements for solutions that solve real world networking problems better than the competition.
·  Travel to customer and channel partner sites, trade shows and other venues to directly support demand generation and customer loyalty initiatives.

Qualifications:

·  Excellent soft skills required. You will be interfacing with all levels of the organization. Excellent written and oral communications skills and the ability to communicate and influence cross-functionally with elegance will be critical to success. 
·  Self-managing and directing, with sound judgment to prioritize/balance customer, channel, and field requests with business objectives.
·  Highly collaborative.
·  Comfortable with ambiguity, flexible and open to change as business needs evolve.
·  Knowledge of basic networking fundamentals and reasonable hands-on experience is a must.  
·  Technically sound and knowledgeable of core networking technologies (L2/L3 wired network protocols, TCP/IP communications, Wireless LAN and 802.11 / LAN 802.3 standards).
·  Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering or equivalent is a must.
·  Desired - MBA with preference on finance, strategy, product management.
·  2-4 years (minimum) of product management or equivalent experience. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is EEO F/M/Protected Veteran/ Individual with Disabilities. HPE will comply with all applicable laws related to the use of arrest and conviction records, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and similar laws and will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories.