People Manager, Product Operations

- Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Math, Business, Supply Chain or other related quantitative discipline
- Experience managing people including development, hiring, performance management, and leading teams dispersed across various regions
- Experience working cross functionally across finance, marketing or supply chain
- 5+ years of project management (including scope, schedule, budget, quality, risk and critical path management) experience
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership
- MBA or advanced degree in Business, Operations, or related field.
- Experience in NPI/hardware program management (consumer electronics or similar regulated hardware environment).
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate complex business needs into actionable strategies

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Product Operations is looking for a People Manager to lead a team of Operations Program Managers (OPMs) responsible for driving NPI program execution across Amazon's Devices portfolio (Echo, Tablet, Kindle, FireTV). This role owns the performance, growth, and delivery output of a team operating in ambiguous, cross-functional environments where problem definition and strategy are not always predetermined. You will manage resource allocation across 25–30+ concurrent NPI programs, partner with Finance, Quality/AME, Supply Chain, and Hardware Engineering on program governance frameworks (e.g., 9-Block classification), and build the mechanisms that make your team's work auditable, data-driven, and scalable without your direct involvement in every decision.


Key job responsibilities
Team & People Management
• Own hiring, onboarding, and career development for a team of OPMs; proactively recruit bar-raising talent with NPI/program management expertise
• Build and share customized onboarding plans so new OPMs ramp quickly on programs, tools (Milestone Manager, NPI Data Hub), and process
• Run regular 1:1s tying performance evaluation to growth trajectory; lead the promotion process for OPMs demonstrating next-level scope; act as career sponsor for lateral moves
• Evaluate team members against role guidelines; participate in and begin leading calibration to ensure fair, consistent evaluation
• Identify underperformance early, document expectations and timelines clearly and respectfully
• Establish a psychologically safe team culture; actively listen and act on team feedback (reallocating work, escalating broken mechanisms)
• Manage workload sustainability; partner with leadership to remedy systemic overload rather than absorbing it silently
Scope, Influence & Execution
• Define metrics for program health, resource utilization, and operational excellence across the NPI portfolio
• Own resourcing decisions for the team — balance tactical program coverage against strategic hiring/restructuring needs (e.g., off-roadmap program gaps, Bee cohort resourcing)
• Drive cross-functional alignment with Finance, Quality/AME, and Supply Chain on shared frameworks (9-Block, SPOR thresholds, gating requirements)
• Own regular reporting mechanisms (MBR, OP1/OP2 inputs) that make program and team performance auditable to leadership
• Negotiate priorities across programs and product lines; make explicit trade-offs between short-term coverage and long-term team capability building
• Build audit mechanisms and self-sustaining processes (e.g., mechanisms with permanent BIE/OPM ownership rather than manager-dependent)
Problem Complexity & Communication
• Lead a team accountable for a cross-cutting program area spanning multiple product lines, not a single isolated workstream
• Present program and team performance narratives to leaders up to three levels above (L10); write clear, structured narratives (MBR, OP1/OP2, COEs)
• Resolve contentious cross-functional issues (e.g., GCM/MPM role conflicts, off-roadmap HC gaps) by building consensus among stakeholders with competing priorities
• Communicate a team vision anchored to customer/program outcomes, not just task lists
Process Improvement
• Establish operational excellence mechanisms that reduce repeated work and defects across the OPM team's workflows
• Identify and close gaps in program governance systems (e.g., reconciliation gaps across Roadmap, Pre-Concept Tracker, Program Driven HC)
• Drive simplification of program delivery processes; reduce team exposure to recurring failure modes (e.g., late-stage ID/packaging changes, phase-skip patterns at Dev Commit→HVT)