Data & Platform Product Manager

WorldStrides is a global provider of educational travel and experiential learning programs. The Data & Platform Product Manager will own platform and data problem spaces, including payments, analytics, data quality, and the migration to Microsoft Fabric and Power BI. The role focuses on customer discovery, experimentation, cross-functional collaboration, regulatory compliance, and measurable financial and data outcomes.

Responsibilities:

• Frame problems sharply across two lanes. Synthesize customer research, transactional data, finance conversations, and internal user interviews into problem statements precise enough that the team can disagree productively. Toggle context between spaces without losing depth in either
• Treat internal users like customers. Data platform work has customers inside the company — analysts, ops teams, PMs, marketing, finance. Understand their jobs, prototype your solutions in Power BI or lightweight tools, measure outcomes the same way you would for an external user
• Shepherd the Fabric migration from the product side. Partner with data engineering on the migration to Microsoft Fabric — sequencing which domains and use cases move first, defining semantic models and Power BI surfaces that internal teams will actually adopt, and making sure the migration ships incremental wins rather than a big-bang cutover
• Design experiments. Translate problem frames into the smallest tests that would change your mind. Default to many small bets over one big one — even in finance and data, where the instinct is to plan large
• Use AI as a force multiplier. Draft schemas, generate SQL and DAX, summarize financial policy documents, synthesize interview transcripts, prototype internal tools, and pressure-test your own thinking. You don't need to have shipped AI features; you do need to actively use AI in how you work
• Judge slowly and deliberately. Set explicit outcome thresholds before tests run. Be honest about signal vs. noise. Kill ideas — including your own — that don't clear the bar
• Sequence strategically across spaces. Ensure each experiment compounds: financial infrastructure and data assets that future bets can build on, not one-off wins
• Navigate regulatory and compliance edges. PCI, financial reporting, data governance, PII handling. You don't need to be a lawyer, but you know when to bring one in — and you build controls into product decisions early, not bolted on later
• Communicate up and across. Tell leadership, your pods, finance, data, and compliance a clear, honest story about what we are learning, where we are betting, and where we are stuck
• Make shared resources want to work with you. Designers, engineers, and business partners split their attention across pods. You earn their best thinking by bringing sharp problems, respecting their craft, and being a generous teammate — not by competing for their time

Requirements:

• 5+ years in product management, ideally including at least one of: payments or fintech, data or analytics platforms, financial operations product (billing, subscriptions, revenue), internal tooling, or B2B SaaS with a technical customer
• Comfort in structured, quantitative problems
• SQL and spreadsheet fluency; can read a financial model without flinching; can talk with a data engineer about a pipeline or semantic model design and hold your end of the conversation
• Working familiarity with Power BI as a consumer at minimum — enough to know what a good report looks like, what a bad one looks like, and where the seams are
• Strong discovery instincts
• You have done your own customer research, whether that customer is a parent, a finance analyst, or a data engineer
• A track record of moving customer or business outcomes — not just shipping
• You can point to bets you killed and explain why
• Comfort with regulatory and compliance work — PCI, financial policy, data governance, PII — as part of product decisions rather than a downstream tax
• Comfort holding a portfolio of unfinished bets across two spaces at once without forcing premature closure
• Active, curious use of AI tools in your daily work — for schema and SQL generation, research synthesis, writing, analysis, or anything else
• You don't have to be an AI expert; you do have to be the kind of person who would have tried five tools by next month
• Crisp written communication
• You can write a one-pager that changes minds — for a finance leader, a data leader, or a customer
• Comfort with ambiguity and a small team
• WorldStrides will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States
• This is not a position for which sponsorship will be provided
• Individuals with temporary visas such as E, F-1, J-1, H-1, H-2, L, B, J or TN, or who need sponsorship for work authorization now or in the future, are not eligible for hire
• Direct experience shipping payments, billing, or subscription products
• Direct experience as PM for a data platform, analytics team, or experimentation platform
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric — OneLake, Data Factory pipelines, lakehouses, semantic models — either as a builder or as a PM
• Deeper Power BI fluency — semantic models, DAX literacy, workspaces and deployment pipelines, row-level security, adoption strategies
• Experience running or leading a data platform migration, especially into a modern lakehouse / medallion architecture
• Experience in a two-sided or three-sided model where financial operations touch multiple personas (e.g., families, schools, internal ops)
• Familiarity with common tooling in these spaces
• Experience partnering closely with finance or accounting business units on product decisions
• EdTech or travel background, especially where financial transactions are group-based (schools, teams, tours) as well as individual