Technical Product Manager

Hello, we're OpenPlay!

We’re looking for a lead professional services engineer to run the technical side of a team working on our web-based music distribution platform. You will join a product manager and two additional engineers working with one of the world’s largest music companies to design, develop, and deploy new features. This is a full-time position that will require you to spend eight days per month at our client’s offices (along with a product manager) in Burbank or Downtown Los Angeles. Other than that we have a great office by the beach in Santa Monica and/or you are free to work remote.

What’s OpenPlay?

We build software that powers the world’s largest record labels and music distributors. Our flagship products, OpenPlay Music and OpenPlay Platform, are used globally by labels and distributors to manage and deliver hundreds of thousands of albums from classical composers to indie bands to the world’s top selling artists (many of whom are also indie bands). At our core is a fantastic team and a strong process that allows us to consistently deliver robust, fast, beautiful, friendly software to stay on top of a rapidly evolving music industry. You can learn more about OpenPlay at: www.openplay.co

What you’ll be doing

• Client-Facing Consulting: You’ll lead the technical side of a dedicated professional services team responsible for the ongoing evolution of our platform inside one of the world's largest music companies. You will be working to uncover requirements, brainstorm solutions, develop roadmaps, discuss systems architecture, and design features with teams across our client’s organization from IT and business stakeholders to non-technical and label end-users. Eight days of your month (along with a product manager) will be spent in our client's offices in Burbank or Downtown Los Angeles.
• Digging Deeper: Because you can’t always take every requirement at face value, and in order to provide the best possible engineering specifications to your team, you’ll also need to spend time doing thing like:
  
  • Having one-on-one conversations with technical members of our client’s teams;
  • Documenting technical requirements of new features;
  • Testing APIs and interfaces for client systems;
  • Querying relational databases to test their output;
  • Diagnosing Oracle DB error messages;
  • Manually assembling XML files and posting them to an API for testing;
  • Interacting with a SOAP API to find out how it works;
  • Reviewing and troubleshooting DDEX files (music industry specific XML);
  • Analyzing and interpreting music industry standards;
  • Reading client system documentation and learning about how these systems work, and their function in the ecosystem;
  • Helping to plan your engineering team's weekly sprints; and
  • Clicking the "Undo" button in Gmail
• Bridging the Gap: You’ll be the bridge between your engineering team and our client’s technical (i.e. IT, system administration, database, engineering, devops) teams. In some cases you will also be working on technical solutions for our client’s customers (who use OpenPlay), and thus serving as a kind of ambassador for our client’s brand. 
• Fixing Problems: You’ll also help to diagnose issues with integrations and connections between OpenPlay and client systems. This might include:
  
  • Researching and discussing network routing tables;
  • Testing connectivity between the client network and AWS; 
  • Analyzing error reports from client systems; and 
  • Coordinating directly with our client’s technical teams. 
• Working with an Awesome Team: Work with a dedicated team of two engineers and a product manager to design, develop, and deploy new features. Have engineering, design, and product support from the rest of the OpenPlay team, and work closely with them to align to client features with broader company goals.

How we work

• We are an agile team with a focus on continuous, iterative delivery of working features. We rely on communication and collaboration over planning and documents.
• We automate and test heavily allowing us to rapidly deliver changes with minimal risk.
• We have a well-defined, efficient engineering and delivery process with minimal management overhead that works well remotely.

Experience we’re looking for

• Client-services/consulting experience. This is a high-engagement professional services role for a single client where much of your time will be spent uncovering undocumented technical requirements via in person, phone and email conversations. You should have previous experience working with customers to knowledgeably, thoughtfully and helpfully guide discussions and get questions answered. Professionalism and resiliency are required traits.
• Software engineering experience on a web, mobile, or other type of client/server application. Understanding the structure and behavior common to a client/server application will be necessary for you to speak productively to technical questions with and without your engineering team’s input. Console game development sounds really cool but might not transfer over as well. TI-86 calculator programming experience probably wouldn’t be a great fit either.
• Academic knowledge of software development. In addition to experience making things work, you’ll need to be able to research and articulate a particularly good solution. A computer science degree or otherwise acquired understanding of core software development principles would be the best fit.

Benefits

• Competitive salary.
• Comprehensive Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Free to work remote. Our process lends itself very well to remote work. It can sometimes feel remote at the office when we’re sitting across from each other talking on slack.
• Office by the beach with a small-but-growing collection of vinyl figurines.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.