Job description

ABOUT FOCUS Focus is a fully remote digital services company dedicated to building highly impactful government digital services. We partner with states and federal agencies, including the Department of State, IRS, and the Department of Education, to design and deliver modern, accessible, and secure software for government programs that impact millions of lives. We bring together engineers, designers, and product thinkers who care deeply about usability, reliability, and creating real impact for our clients and the people they serve. Our Product Team Lives by: - High agency and ownership: you make things happen. - Strategic thinking: you see the system, not just the feature. - Empathy for users, teammates, and stakeholders alike. - Crisp decision-making: you simplify ambiguity into forward motion. THE ROLE We're looking for a Technical Product Manager (Cloud) to lead product strategy and delivery for our work with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), which delivers federal student aid to millions of students and families every year. Our team builds automated testing suites, test data tooling, and CI/CD pipelines in AWS that help multiple vendor teams ship safer releases, faster. This role sits at the intersection of product management, cloud engineering, and quality. You'll work with engineers, FSA product owners, and third-party vendor teams to define the roadmap, prioritize the backlog, and make sure every release moves the program forward. The best fit for this role started out technical. Maybe you were a software engineer, or you worked in infrastructure, test automation, QA engineering, or DevOps before moving into product. You can follow an architecture discussion, push back on an estimate, and still translate it all into plain language for agency leadership. WHAT YOU'LL DO PRODUCT STRATEGY & ROADMAP - Define and maintain a clear product roadmap aligned to FSA's mission, milestones, and contract objectives using the Focus Delivery Framework - Apply structured prioritization frameworks to balance user needs, compliance requirements, and technical feasibility - Turn vendor team pain points, release data, and stakeholder goals into epics, user stories, and clear acceptance criteria - Define success measures for test coverage, release velocity, defect escape rate, and pipeline reliability CLOUD & TECHNICAL DELIVERY - Partner with engineering leads on AWS architecture, CI/CD pipelines, test automation strategy, APIs, and infrastructure-as-code, and make informed tradeoffs without prescribing implementation - Own the backlog for developer self-service tools (test data generation, pipeline status, environment readiness) used by vendor teams and government stakeholders - Collaborate with the Technical Lead on DevSecOps and ATO readiness activities so security and compliance are planned in from the start - Coordinate technical dependencies across engineering, external vendors, and FSA platform owners AGILE DELIVERY & STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT - Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives to keep cross-functional teams aligned and unblocked - Partner with FSA product owners to balance competing priorities across a multi-vendor federal ecosystem - Build alignment across program, policy, and technology partners without formal authority - Run demos and sprint reviews that keep stakeholders informed and promote continuous learning METRICS STRATEGY & DOCUMENTATION - Establish a metrics strategy including leading indicators, counterweight metrics, and performance dashboards - Create a single source of truth linking technical specifications, user requirements, and decisions - Prepare Monthly Project Status Reports and represent delivery health to FSA leadership REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE - 4-year degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or equivalent - 5+ years of experience in technical product management, software engineering, or a closely related technical role - Prior experience working as an engineer, or working on infrastructure or cloud environments and projects (for example, test automation, QA engineering, or DevOps) - Experience on government modernization projects - Hands-on cloud experience, AWS preferred (Azure also welcome) - Working knowledge of CI/CD, automated testing, APIs, and infrastructure-as-code, enough to clarify edge cases and challenge estimates - Strong skills in MVP definition, roadmap creation, and cross-functional delivery using agile methodologies - Exceptional executive communication, with the ability to synthesize technical details into clear, scannable updates for leadership - Data-driven decision-making; comfortable establishing metrics strategies and analytics frameworks DESIRED SKILLS - Experience with the Department of Education / FSA or other high-volume public services - Familiarity with government security requirements (FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, ATO processes, Section 508) and Public Trust environments - Experience with AWS GovCloud, Terraform, Playwright or similar test frameworks, and observability tooling such as DataDog - Experience managing dependencies across multiple vendor teams - Comfort with SQL or Python for your own analysis EMPLOYMENT TYPE & COMPENSATION We're open to hiring this role as either a W-2 employee or a 1099 contractor. The salary range for this role is $135,000–$175,000. LOCATION Remote. All team members must be based in the continental U.S. Some projects may require occasional travel, approximately 1–2 times per year. REQUIREMENTS - Legal authorization to work in the United States - Work authorization that doesn't require visa sponsorship, now or in the future - Ability to meet any other requirements for government contracts for which candidates are hired - May be subject to a government background check or security clearance, depending on the contract WHY FOCUS We're a growing team of engineers, designers, and product leaders who believe government services can be modern, human-centered, and delightful to use. We value autonomy, transparency, and curiosity — and we're looking for people who want to build products that matter.

Requirements

Must-haves

High agency and ownership: you make things happen.
Strategic thinking: you see the system, not just the feature.
Empathy for users, teammates, and stakeholders alike.
Crisp decision-making: you simplify ambiguity into forward motion.
Define and maintain a clear product roadmap aligned to FSA's mission, milestones, and contract objectives using the Focus Delivery Framework
Apply structured prioritization frameworks to balance user needs, compliance requirements, and technical feasibility
Turn vendor team pain points, release data, and stakeholder goals into epics, user stories, and clear acceptance criteria
Define success measures for test coverage, release velocity, defect escape rate, and pipeline reliability
Partner with engineering leads on AWS architecture, CI/CD pipelines, test automation strategy, APIs, and infrastructure-as-code, and make informed tradeoffs without prescribing implementation
Own the backlog for developer self-service tools (test data generation, pipeline status, environment readiness) used by vendor teams and government stakeholders
Collaborate with the Technical Lead on DevSecOps and ATO readiness activities so security and compliance are planned in from the start
Coordinate technical dependencies across engineering, external vendors, and FSA platform owners
Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives to keep cross-functional teams aligned and unblocked
Partner with FSA product owners to balance competing priorities across a multi-vendor federal ecosystem
Build alignment across program, policy, and technology partners without formal authority
Run demos and sprint reviews that keep stakeholders informed and promote continuous learning
Establish a metrics strategy including leading indicators, counterweight metrics, and performance dashboards
Create a single source of truth linking technical specifications, user requirements, and decisions

Nice-to-haves

Hands-on cloud experience, AWS preferred (Azure also welcome)
Experience with the Department of Education / FSA or other high-volume public services
Familiarity with government security requirements (FedRAMP, NIST 800-53, ATO processes, Section 508) and Public Trust environments
Experience with AWS GovCloud, Terraform, Playwright or similar test frameworks, and observability tooling such as DataDog
Experience managing dependencies across multiple vendor teams
Comfort with SQL or Python for your own analysis

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

ci/cdawsagileazuresqlpython

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick