City Bureau Hiring -- Product and Ops Support Manager
City Bureau Hiring
City Bureau is an innovation lab reimagining local journalism, civic media, and participatory democracy. We equip people with civic skills, develop resources that directly meet people’s information needs, and create pathways for deliberative dialogue that strengthens communities. We envision a world where all communities have the information, tools, and resources they need to actively shape their futures and cultivate a more responsive and just democracy.
Location: Remote, with occasional travel to Chicago (City Bureau headquarters) and partner communities. If residence is in the Chicago area, will be expected to participate periodically in person at City Bureau community events.
City Bureau’s Documenters program makes local democracy real and accessible to anyone. We do this by training and paying community members to attend and take notes at local public meetings, turning the knowledge, relationships, and capacity of local residents into a powerful community information resource.
Since launching Documenters in Chicago in 2016, local news and community organizations nationwide have adopted the program through the Documenters Network, which now includes more than 25 programs housed in local organizations across the country, with more added every year. Collectively, we have trained more than 4,000 community members and documented more than 5,000 public meetings across the country.
Using a network approach, City Bureau partners with local community and news organizations to start local Documenters programs (“sites”) in order to equip communities to understand and shape local policies and public systems. City Bureau stewards the overall Documenters program model; provides custom central technology through Documenters.org to operate and publish Documenters assignments; and offers convenings, template materials, and more to sites that support innovation, learning, and connection.
About the JobCity Bureau is seeking a Product and Ops Support Manager to join our Product team and be the backbone of product and operational support to 25+ Documenters sites.
Documenters sites work day-to-day inside the Documenters.org platform, the online home for Documenters workflow management and content. Documenters.org is a custom built software product owned and developed by City Bureau, and it is continuously evolving. The user base for the platform has grown substantially over the last several years, as has the functionality of the product, and we are expanding our Product team to ensure users have the support they need to succeed with the product.
This role will be the front line for responding to new product support requests, helping our users get unstuck, and collaborating with the rest of the product team and with the overall Documenters teams when new functionality, process, or documentation is indicated.
This role will also be responsible for managing administrative and operational workflows to onboard, offboard, and maintain sites, including contract renewals, invoicing, and access to third party software systems that complement Documenters.org.
We’re looking for someone with product support experience who genuinely enjoys spending time with users and has a background in creative troubleshooting and problem solving. The ideal candidate loves being customer-facing, is a problem solver who gets to the root cause of an issue, can collaborate with engineers and non-technical folks alike to come up with creative solutions, and has high attention to detail.
This role will report to the Director of Product and will collaborate closely with all Documenters team members as well as our technical partners.
- You get energy and joy from working with end users: You genuinely enjoy jumping on a call to figure out why someone’s having a challenge with a system, and build ongoing relationships with our end users. You are empathetic and want to truly understand their challenges and needs. You’re thoughtful about explaining issues with clarity and kindness.
- You are a problem solver: You’re a pro at getting at the root cause of a problem. You quickly develop deep, hands-on expertise in product and systems knowledge, and are willing to go into the weeds to figure out what’s going on. You are independent, but know when it’s time to escalate and call in additional stakeholders to figure out what to do next.
- You have high attention to detail: No question is too trivial! You don’t let things fall through the cracks, and you’re on top of incoming issues and responses. You’re a strong project manager, and proactive about response and followthrough.
- You’re excited about being a part of a collaborative team: You look forward to contributing to product strategy and roadmapping and can bring what you’ve learned from working with users to the table. You’re comfortable working with all levels of technical savvy, from engineers to folks who really hate technology.