At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping learners around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.
Make an impact by connecting business and technology needs with the data capabilities that drive Cengage.
In the role of Technical Product Owner for Data Management & Operations, you will partner with Data Engineering leaders and teams leading data operations across Cengage. You will direct priority setting, transform detailed data needs into feasible technical specifications, and help ensure the delivery and ongoing enhancement of dependable, scalable, and well-controlled data capabilities.
This position lies at the crossroads of data engineering, architecture, governance, operations, and the groups that use enterprise data. You will bring product ownership experience and subject matter knowledge to assist Cengage in improving the acquisition, integration, transformation, management, monitoring, and accessibility of data for business and technology objectives.
What You’ll Do
Develop Data Management & Operations Strategy and Priorities- Collaborate with Data Management & Operations leadership to develop functional strategy, priorities, roadmaps, and investment plans.
- Turn strategy into a consistent portfolio of initiatives, capabilities, operational developments, and technology investments.
- Evaluate emerging business and technology needs, find opportunities and gaps, and develop recommendations.
- Help establish and maintain multi-year roadmaps.
- Provide leadership with access to portfolio health, competing priorities, capacity constraints, dependencies, risks, and decisions requiring attention.
- Act as a reliable liaison with business and technology leaders.
- Develop a solid understanding of Cengage business strategies, processes, technology landscape, and data needs.
- Engage team members to frame business problems and desired outcomes.
- Translate sophisticated data concepts for technical and non-technical audiences.
- Represent leadership independently in forums and decision-making discussions.
- Build relationships across business functions and technology organizations.
- Partner with collaborators to shape and enable scalable data capabilities.
- Champion the adoption and steady refinement of data management methods.
- Drive adoption of data quality practices.
- Drive alignment with data governance policies, standards, and practices.
- Collaborate with technical teams to define clear business outcomes and requirements.
- Identify systemic gaps and opportunities across data processes.
- Encourage enterprise reuse and standardization.
- Assist in establishing criteria for success regarding data capabilities and initiatives.
- Drive execution of the portfolio, ensuring priorities translate into coordinated initiatives.
- Collaborate with program/project managers and technical teams to coordinate implementation.
- Maintain portfolio-level access to delivery progress.
- Ensure work entering delivery is sufficiently understood, prioritized, and aligned with outcomes.
- Make timely prioritization and tradeoff decisions.
- Provide product ownership and prioritization oversight for relevant backlogs.
- Work jointly with other TPOs and technology leaders on cross-platform initiatives.
- Support productive delivery approaches, clarity, answerability, and constant development.
- Collaborate with leadership and technical teams to set and track expectations for data capabilities.
- Use operational performance indicators to identify systemic improvement opportunities.
- Drive prioritization of initiatives that reduce operational burden, increase automation, and improve maintainability.
- Maintain a suitable balance among new capabilities, operational improvements, risk remediation, technical debt, and platform health.
- Provide leadership and coordination for significant cross-functional operational issues.
- Consistently advance Data Management & Operations workflows and indicators of success.
What You’ll Need
- Extensive background in technical product ownership, technology business collaboration, portfolio/program oversight, data management, data operations, business analysis, or a related technology role.
- Demonstrable experience working alongside data engineering teams and translating business and technical requirements into well-defined engineering assignments.
- Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including data pipelines, ETL/ELT, data integration, data modeling, data storage, APIs, data warehouses/lakes/lakehouses, cloud data platforms, and batch and/or real-time data processing.
- Knowledge of data management areas including data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, security, access, and lifecycle management.
- Experience with operational elements of data platforms, including monitoring, reliability, incident management, performance, scalability, and service-level expectations.
- Proven capability to collaborate with senior leaders on strategy and convert strategic direction into actionable priorities.
- Experience representing a technology or data function with senior business and technology collaborators.
- Demonstrated experience managing sophisticated portfolios or roadmaps involving multiple initiatives, collaborators, dependencies, competing priorities, and constrained capacity.
- Solid foundational knowledge of enterprise data management and data governance.
- Experience with enterprise data platforms and applications; familiarity with Snowflake, SAP, Salesforce, or comparable technologies is preferred.
- Practical understanding of operational and analytical data modeling concepts.
- Strong analytical, systems-thinking, and problem-solving skills.
- Proven capability to grasp technical architecture and engineering compromises.
- Experience working across Agile and other technology delivery practices.
- Familiarity with SQL and/or Python is a plus.
- Familiarity with established data management frameworks and practices such as DAMA-DMBOK and/or CDMP certification is preferred.
- Experience contributing to technology investment planning, arguments, vendor evaluations, capacity planning, or other portfolio-level investment decisions is preferred.
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Data Management, Business, or a similar field, or equivalent work experience.
Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws.
Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at [email protected].
About Cengage
Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide. Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.
Compensation
At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy.
The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location. Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range.
In this position, you will be eligible to participate in the company’s discretionary incentive bonus program. This position's bonus target amount, which is not guaranteed and is dependent on individual performance and overall company results among other factors, is provided below.
15% Annual: Individual Target$101,900.00 - $163,000.00 USD
Skills Required
- Extensive experience in technical product ownership, technology business collaboration, portfolio or program oversight, data management, data operations, business analysis, or a related technology role.
- Experience working with data engineering teams and translating business and technical requirements into engineering assignments.
- Understanding of data pipelines, ETL/ELT, data integration, data modeling, data storage, APIs, data warehouses, data lakes, lakehouses, cloud data platforms, and batch or real-time processing.
- Knowledge of data quality, metadata, lineage, governance, security, access, and lifecycle management.
- Experience with data platform operations, monitoring, reliability, incident management, performance, scalability, and service-level expectations.
- Experience collaborating with senior leaders on strategy and converting strategic direction into actionable priorities.
- Experience representing technology or data functions with senior business and technology stakeholders.
- Experience managing complex portfolios or roadmaps involving multiple initiatives, stakeholders, dependencies, competing priorities, and constrained capacity.
- Foundational knowledge of enterprise data management and data governance.
- Experience with enterprise data platforms and applications.
- Practical understanding of operational and analytical data modeling concepts.
- Strong analytical, systems-thinking, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to understand technical architecture and engineering tradeoffs.
- Experience working across Agile and other technology delivery practices.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, data management, business, or a similar field, or equivalent work experience.
- Familiarity with Snowflake, SAP, Salesforce, or comparable technologies.
- Familiarity with SQL and/or Python.
- Familiarity with DAMA-DMBOK and/or CDMP certification.
- Experience contributing to technology investment planning, business cases, vendor evaluations, capacity planning, or portfolio-level investment decisions.
Cengage Group Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Cengage Group and has not been reviewed or approved by Cengage Group.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid parental leave and company-designated wellness time off (including a year-end week off) stand out as notable time-away benefits. Flexible work positioning (virtual-first/remote-first) further increases the practical value of time-off and work-life support.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Workplace mental-health support appears to be a meaningful part of the rewards package, reinforced by external recognition for mental-health practices. Wellness-oriented programs and designated wellness days contribute additional lifestyle value beyond cash pay.
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Inclusive Benefits Coverage — Benefits and policies signal strong inclusion positioning, supported by external equality recognition. Family-related supports (e.g., fertility resources and parent support) also broaden who can benefit from the package.
Cengage Group Insights
What We Do
With more than 100 years of serving learners, Cengage Group is a global edtech company that enables student choice. No matter how, where, when or why someone wants to learn, our portfolio of education businesses supports all students, from middle school through graduate school and skills education, with quality content and technology. Collectively, our three business units – Cengage Academic, Cengage Work, and Cengage Select – help millions of students each year in more than 125 countries achieve their education and career goals and lead choice-filled lives. Visit us at www.cengagegroup.com
Why Work With Us
Our employee experience centers around a shared purpose: to help millions of learners achieve their dreams and improve their lives through education. Whether you want to make a difference in the world or start a fulfilling career in edtech, we focus on providing our employees with meaningful work while empowering them with resources to succeed.
