Director, Product Operations Full Time NEW

At Nielsen, we are passionate about our work to power a better media future for all people by providing powerful insights that drive client decisions and deliver extraordinary results. Our talented, global workforce is dedicated to capturing audience engagement with content – wherever and whenever it’s consumed. Together, we are proudly rooted in our deep legacy as we stand at the forefront of the media revolution. When you join Nielsen, you will join a dynamic team committed to excellence, perseverance, and the ambition to make an impact together. We champion you, because when you succeed, we do too. We enable your best to power our future.

Job Description

As the Director of Product Operations, you will serve as the strategic “connective tissue” between product strategy and cross-functional execution. Your mission is to orchestrate the delivery ecosystem, ensuring that the organization’s most complex, high-revenue initiatives move from requirement to market reality with maximum efficiency.

You will lead a team responsible for architecting the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) framework and providing the operational infrastructure required to scale. You will be responsible for the integrity of the delivery process – managing the interdependencies between Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Commercial teams. You ensure that the company’s most significant investments are delivered with transparency, alignment, and high impact.

Your success in this role will be measured by the increased velocity, predictability, and transparency of our most critical product investments.

• Significant increase in the percentage of top initiatives delivered on time and within scope.
• Reduction in the “administrative tax” on Product Managers, as measured by time reclaimed from manual reporting and tool maintenance.
• Improved internal satisfaction scores from Engineering, Data Science, and Commercial leaders regarding the clarity and reliability of the delivery pipeline.

Key Responsibilities

• Update and maintain a scalable Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) that bridges the gap between high-level roadmaps and delivery.
• Establish standardized stage-gates and “Definition of Ready/Done” criteria to ensure Engineering and Data Science receive high-quality, actionable requirements.
• Conduct quarterly audits of the delivery pipeline to identify friction points, automate manual handoffs, and reduce lead time without over-engineering the process.
• Lead execution for the “Top 20” initiatives—those involving 3+ functional teams or multi-million revenue impact—ensuring alignment post-PRD through launch.
• Proactively identify and resolve cross-team resource conflicts and technical dependencies between Product, Tech, Data Science, and Operations.
• Serve as the primary operational point of contact for high-value client steering committees and strategic data vendors (e.g., Netflix, Amazon) to ensure technical integrations stay on schedule.
• Design and own the executive dashboarding strategy, providing a “single source of truth” for product health (adoption, retention) and delivery health (predictability, throughput).
• Ensure Jira and Confluence are configured to provide clean, automated reporting, eliminating the need for Product Managers to manually aggregate status updates.
• Provide quarterly insights to the C-suite on execution trends, highlighting areas where resource reallocation may be necessary to meet Op Plan goals.
• Oversee the administration and configuration of Jira, Confluence, and associated add-ons to support a unified workflow across the department.
• Evaluate and implement emerging tools (AI-assisted productivity, roadmap visualization) that enhance the productivity of the Product and Tech teams.
• Maintain the centralized repository of best practices, templates, and guidelines that standardize how the organization builds and launches products.
• Lead quarterly training sessions to ensure new hires and existing team members are proficient in the PDLC and operational tools, ensuring a consistent culture of execution.

Qualifications

• 17+ years of experience in Product Operations, Program Management, or Product Management, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing high-performing teams.
• Proven track record of managing “Top-Tier” strategic initiatives that require the synchronization of cross-functional areas (e.g., Engineering, Data Science, Operations, and Sales).
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing a Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) in a growth-stage or enterprise technology environment.
• Strong ability to translate raw delivery data into executive-level insights. Experience building automated dashboards that track both business health (KPIs) and delivery health (velocity, lead time).
• Exceptional ability to build consensus and maintain high-trust partnerships across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Customer Success and Commercial leadership.
• A passion for process as an enabler, not a hurdle. You should have a reputation for making the teams around you faster and more effective.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree is a plus.
• Professional certifications in Program Management (PMP, PgMP) are welcomed but secondary to proven real-world results.

Additional Information

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