Product Operations Lead

Those living in Ottawa currently may apply at https://ca.indeed.com/job/product-operations-lead-4cc99acf6e8c0782 (do NOT apply through ziprecruiter)
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The Opportunity
TalentMap is an Ottawa-based organization with 25+ years of experience building world-class employee survey experiences for medium and large organizations across North America.

Position Overview:
We're looking for a Product Operations Lead to own the execution layer of our product development process. You'll be the person who makes sure features get built right, documented clearly, tested thoroughly, and delivered on time—while relentlessly looking for ways to automate and improve how we work.

We believe that the future of work is AI first, that traditional roles are blurring as technology evolves, and that a generalist with AI will be more effective in the long run.

This is not a traditional Product Management or QA role. We're building an AI-first company, and we need someone who shares that mindset: someone who sees a repetitive process and immediately thinks “how do I automate this?” before doing it manually. You'll use AI tools daily, experiment with new approaches, and help shape how AI makes our product and our processes better.

You'll work in a shared reporting structure:
The Product Manager defines what you work on and why; the CTO guides how it gets built technically. You'll collaborate closely with a small, senior development team and work across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:
Delivery Process

• Maintain and groom the product backlog in collaboration with the Product Manager
• Continuously improve delivery processes—automate status reporting, streamline handoffs, and reduce ceremony overhead
• Coordinate testing with internal stakeholders and client success
• Coordinate release readiness—confirm features are tested, documented, and ready to ship on schedule
  

Quality Assurance & User Acceptance Testing

• Own the UAT process for all new features and releases
• Write, maintain, and execute test cases
• Build and maintain automated testing workflows wherever possible—manual regression testing should be the exception, not the rule
  

Documentation & Knowledge Management

• Own the internal knowledge base: feature documentation, release notes, how-to guides, and troubleshooting resources
• Create and maintain handoff documentation between product, development, and client-facing teams
• Build templates and AI-assisted workflows to keep documentation current with minimal manual upkeep
  

UI/UX Polish (Growth Area)

• Take ownership of UI/UX refinement for existing features—improving layouts, interactions, and visual consistency
• Propose and implement design improvements using wireframes, mockups, or prototyping tools
• This is an area we'll grow into together. You don't need to be a designer on day one, but you should have a strong eye for usability and a willingness to develop this skill.
  

AI & Automation

• Approach every repeatable task with an automation-first mindset.
• Use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) to accelerate your own work: drafting test cases, analyzing sprint data, triaging bugs, building documentation.
• Identify opportunities to embed AI into our product and development processes—and advocate for them.
• Experiment. Push boundaries. We're a small team that moves fast, and we want someone who treats AI as a core part of how they work, not a novelty.
  

What We're Looking For:

We value ambition, learning speed, and AI fluency over years of experience. If you've automated something nobody asked you to, we want to talk to you.

• 1–3 years in a product ops or technical project management role—OR a shorter track record with demonstrated ability to build, automate, and ship independently
• Some exposure to UAT, test case design, or quality assurance processes—formal or self-taught
• Strong communication skills—you communicate clearly, concisely, and for your audience (developers, clients, executives)
• Demonstrated fluency with AI tools in your own workflow—not just awareness, but daily usage to get work done faster and better
• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward action. We're a small company building a new function. You'll help define the playbook, not just follow one.
• Collaborative, low-ego, high-ownership personality. You care more about the outcome than who gets credit.
  

Nice to Have

• Formal Scrum training
• Experience with employee engagement, HR tech, or people analytics products
• An eye for clean, usable interfaces and willingness to learn design tools
• Exposure to public sector, municipal, healthcare, or other regulated environments
• Basic technical fluency: you can read a pull request description, understand an API contract, or navigate GitHub without hand-holding
  

What Success Looks Like in 6–12 Months

• UAT is systematic, documented, and increasingly automated—releases ship with confidence.
• The knowledge base is current, searchable, and actively used by client-facing teams
• At least 3 manual processes have been replaced or significantly streamlined through automation
• You're proposing both UI/UX refinements and functional enhancements to existing features—and seeing them through to delivery
• The Product Manager and CTO have more time for strategic work because the operational execution layer is solid