Product Manager

Product Manager – Design System & Component Strategy

We are seeking a contract Product Manager to support a short-term engagement focused on defining and scaling our design system across our digital product portfolio. This resource will help our team bring clarity and structure to how shared components are prioritized, defined, and built across stjude.org, mobile app experiences, event registration touchpoints, and across other digital surfaces. The work will center on identifying common patterns, aligning teams on reusable components, and driving clear product requirements that enable consistent, scalable experiences.

The ideal contractor is equally comfortable operating at both strategic and execution levels — someone who can connect user needs, product goals, and design consistency into a clear system of components and priorities. This role requires someone who can quickly assess a fragmented landscape, identify opportunities for standardization, and translate those into actionable product definitions. The person in this role should be a self-starter who can ramp quickly, work independently, and bring structure to ambiguity. This role will work closely with product managers across the portfolio to understand their experiences, as well as partner with a senior UX leader to help scale and operationalize a cohesive vision for design standards.

Responsibilities (FY 27)

• Review and synthesize existing product experiences, UI patterns, feature sets, and prior design system efforts across key touchpoints
• Partner cross-functionally with product managers, UX, engineering, experimentation, analytics, and business stakeholders to understand current needs, constraints, and duplication across the portfolio
• Work closely with product managers to understand the nuances of their experiences and identify shared needs and opportunities for reuse
• Collaborate with a senior UX expert to translate design standards into scalable, reusable component definitions
• Identify and define core components, patterns, and reusable features based on common use cases and highest-value user journeys
• Establish a clear prioritization framework for component development based on product impact, reuse potential, and effort
• Translate insights into a structured component roadmap including defined scope, feature requirements, and sequencing across teams
• Explore how AI-enabled approaches (such as pattern detection or automated documentation) can accelerate component identification, reuse, and scaling

Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in product management, ideally with design systems, platform products, or shared service models
• Strong experience defining product requirements and translating ambiguity into clear, actionable plans
• Experience working across multiple teams or product areas to drive alignment and reduce duplication
• Familiarity with design systems, component libraries, or reusable UI patterns across web, mobile, and other digital surfaces
• Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills across product, UX, and engineering
• Experience partnering closely with senior UX/design leadership to scale standards across an organization
• Ability to work quickly and independently in a short-term engagement
• Experience with AI-supported product workflows or systemization efforts is a plus

Expected Deliverables

Phase 1 (FY27):

• Synthesized view of existing product patterns, features, and design system efforts across the portfolio and other digital surfaces.
• Defined set of prioritized components and reusable features aligned to key user journeys and product needs
• Clear component roadmap outlining scope, priority, and sequencing across teams
• Identification of gaps, redundancies, and opportunities for standardization across products
• Identification of gaps and opportunities with respect to instrumenting ongoing end-to-end product analytics and usability measurement.