Principal, Technical Product Manager

Job Summary and Mission
At Starbucks, our mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. Starbucks Technologists work to achieve this mission using cutting-edge technology delivered to our partners, customers, stores, roasters, and global communities.
This position contributes to Starbucks success by assuming end-to-end responsibility for the strategic value, usability, and performance of our platforms. This position acts as the leader and subject matter expert in delivering a rationalized and modern global technology platform for Starbucks Contact Centers supporting customers, partners, suppliers agents, and our IT Service Management across the enterprise. We design, build, and nurture a digital ecosystem that elevates the experiences and capabilities for our partners and customers. The primary platforms leveraged in this space are ServiceNow and AWS Connect but are not limited to these. A wide-ranging technical and domain expertise among business and engineering partners is needed to maximize the value of products and services through thoughtful data-driven problem-solving, a crisp definition of MVP solutions, and cross-functional influence among peer technology teams and organizations.
To be successful, the technical product manager principal needs to have significant technical and business acumen along with a strong product management background, with demonstrated experience in shaping a product or service's function within a larger enterprise technology context. Needs to be an expert in managing complex and ambiguous initiatives while managing cross-functional expectations - including but not limited to: feature sets, problem areas, timelines, and change requests. They need to have a passion for building the right capabilities for our partners and our customers balanced with the analytical rigor to test, measure, and iterate to deliver the best experiences and business value
Summary of Key Responsibilities
Product Definition & Value

• Builds the roadmap for a portfolio of products and services, informed by technology trends and business strategy, in partnership with product management


• Directs the creation of feature requirements with functional and non-functional focus, in alignment with optimal customer experience and long-term business strategy


• Drives solution and requirement decisions by providing technical consultation and direction to stakeholders


• Leads alignment with peer technology teams on cross-functional solutions


• Serves as a champion of the customer experience context to the engineering organization


• Oversees creation of acceptance criteria/requirements to align with customer, business, and technical strategy goals


• Accountable for the performance of the portfolio of products and services against business and technical (non-functional) requirements.


• Ensures functional alignment of portfolio of products and services to transitional and target enterprise architecture


• Oversees prioritization of backlogs across the portfolio of products or services


• Recommends new technology trends and innovative products/features to leadership

Analysis & KPIs

• Directs application of data analysis to justify product decisions and apply key learnings


• Leads definition of product health and performance metrics and dashboard/reporting requirements, and KPIs to measure performance against feature goals


• Presents data-driven recommendations to improve feature performance and overall product health


• Drives ongoing improvements to product performance

Leadership & Communication

• Lends deep and broad expertise in the product domain to engineering teams to influence technical features and solution architecture


• Owns effective relationships with product and engineering leaders across Starbucks Technology


• Interacts directly with business stakeholders to understand business issues and to present new ideas and solution recommendations


• Drives elimination of ambiguity in feature criteria and goals


• Presents solution options/recommendations clearly and persuasively to support business stakeholder decisions


• Influences & negotiates with teams across Starbucks Technology, with business partners, and with third-party vendors and resolves most issues


• independently


• Leads team members and peers in learning technical skills and business acumen

Product Planning & Delivery

• Presents and leads alignment of tradeoffs with decision-makers


• Leads and influences mitigations across neighbor ST teams


• Responsible for feature validation against goals and elimination of blocking issues


• Works with cross-functional engineering teams on feature sizing and influences delivery planning


• Practices iterative, agile development

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in a related field


• Demonstrated ability to use analytics and optimization tools to inform product planning and prioritization (5+ years)


• Demonstrated ability to work with design and engineering to deliver customer facing features (5+ years)


• Hands on experience in developing roadmaps, priorities, features, story outlines, writing user stories, and coordinating/prioritizing conflicting requirements in a fast-paced, changing environment with variety of stakeholders (7 years)


• Managing product delivery and release in an agile environment (3 years)


• Industry experience in a technology environment with a record of successfully delivering complex products (10+ years)

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant functional/business process experience - 10 years


• Product definition, measurement, and analysis experience - 10 years


• Enterprise services product management or ownership experience - 7 years


• ServiceNow - 5 years


• Prior experience leading the design, execution, and continuous improvement of enterprise-wide, complex products and/or services


• Deep subject matter expertise in Contact Centers and/or IT Service Management


• Demonstrated ability to influence and gain the support of key stakeholders


• Deep experience developing clear, thorough user stories and acceptance criteria that drive effective solution development anchored in customer experience


• Application of business and technical metrics to define and measure product performance


• Deep understanding of the system architecture and design concepts behind complex, enterprise-class software solutions at high transaction volumes


• Experience designing future-proof solutions for business growth, scalability, resilience, and low operating cost.


• Skilled in the utilization of system development methodologies throughout the full project lifecycle


• Ability to build consensus across a diverse group of stakeholders


• Consistent use of strong verbal and written communication skills to influence outcomes


• Ability to balance multiple priorities and meet deadlines


• Strong knowledge of agile/scrum methodology and user centric design; may be certified product owner; may collaborate with PMO/scrum master on project methodology to highlight issues and help as needed for product lifecycle

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

We are committed to creating a diverse and welcoming workplace that includes partners with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We believe that enables us to better meet our mission and values while serving customers throughout our global communities. People of color, women, LGBTQIA+, veterans and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with all federal state and local ordinances. Starbucks Corporation is committed to offering reasonable accommodations to job applicants with disabilities. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please contact us at

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