Product Operations Lead
Safe Software is hiring its first Product Operations Lead — a builder who will define what Product Ops looks like here.
Inspired by the principles of Melissa Perri’s Escaping the Build Trap, this role exists to help our Product group stay focused on outcomes, not outputs — enabling Product Managers to spend more time on strategy, discovery, and customer value.
You’ll design the systems, processes, and data foundations that let Product, Engineering, and Design collaborate effectively and make confident, outcome-driven decisions.
Your vision will shape how we scale our product practices and use data to stay focused on customer value as we grow.
This is a hands-on, high-impact role—equal parts architect and operator—working closely with Product Managers, Development Managers, and Go-to-Market teams to turn friction points into frameworks and bring clarity to the entire product lifecycle.
**About The Team
**As part of the Product Management team, you’ll join a dynamic and cross-functional group of product professionals who guide product direction across the entire FME platform. The team ensures alignment with Safe Software’s goals, delivers customer satisfaction, and maintains a competitive edge in the market.
What You’ll Be Doing
As a Product Operations Lead, you will be responsible for:
Tooling & Configuration
- Design, configure, and maintain Jira Product Discovery (JPD), Jira Software, and related product tools to create clear, scalable roadmap structures.
- Build and refine frameworks that support multiple roadmap views — e.g., feature, technical, and portfolio roll-ups — enabling visibility for different stakeholders.
- Continuously improve how tools are used, driving innovation in workflow design, reporting, and data hygiene to make planning more efficient and transparent.
- Collaborate with Engineering to keep JPD and Jira configurations aligned with how teams plan, track, and deliver work.
Data & Insights
- Assess and improve how product and usage data are collected, structured, and reported, partnering with Development to close key gaps.
- Define core product metrics and success measures (e.g., adoption, engagement, retention, ARR impact) and make them accessible through self-serve dashboards.
- Identify trends and anomalies that connect product outcomes to business impact and guide roadmap decisions.
Customer & Market Insights
- Build the systems and processes that make customer insight scalable — connecting feedback, research, and market signals across Customer Success, Sales, Support, and Product.
- Centralize inputs from programs such as Early Adopters, Customer Ideas, and the Customer Advisory Board into a shared, searchable repository.
- Create new, lightweight mechanisms that help PMs engage directly with customers and gather insights efficiently as Safe grows.
- Translate customer and market feedback into accessible summaries and reports that inform product strategy and roadmap decisions.
Process Design & Governance
- Maintain and improve core product processes and documentation, including templates, readiness definitions, and defining the handoffs.
- Support quarterly planning and product ceremonies to keep teams aligned and outcomes clearly communicated.
- Ensure changelogs, onboarding materials, and process updates are visible, accurate, and easy for PMs to adopt.
AI Enablement & Future Process Design
- Drive adoption of AI-enabled product practices that make product planning, reporting, and insight generation more efficient.
- Identify and implement opportunities for AI and automation to improve data collection, analysis, and workflow efficiency.
- Establish best practices and guardrails for responsible AI use across product operations.
Qualifications, Skills, and Competencies
Safers come from a variety of backgrounds with a diversity in skills and knowledge. That said, we find that those who are most successful in this role have experience with the following areas.
Required skills:
- Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) in a quantitative field (e.g. engineering, data science, statistics, economics, computer science), business, or related discipline
- 8+ years experience in Product Management, with at least 5 + years in a dedicated Product Operations role, ideally having built or scaled Product Ops practices within a growing product organization.
- Deep understanding of the product management lifecycle and how Product Ops enables PMs to focus on strategy, discovery, and outcomes.
- Proven success improving product data, tooling, and processes in close partnership with Product Managers, Development, and Design.
- Strong proficiency in SQL and data modeling, able to query, structure, and visualize data for reporting and dashboards.
- Experience building dashboards in modern BI tools (e.g., AWS QuickSight, Power BI, Tableau, or Looker) and defining standardized product metrics.
- Working knowledge of database concepts (SQL and NoSQL) and how data storage design impacts reporting and analytics.
- Familiarity with insight-management platforms such as Dovetail — capable of creating a centralized, tagged repository that consolidates research, interviews, and customer feedback for easy querying.
- Familiarity with APIs, JSON, and lightweight scripting (Python or similar) to automate data flows and integrate telemetry from product systems.
- Advanced user of Jira and Jira Product Discovery, including configuration, workflow design, and portfolio roll-ups.
- Understanding of analytics pipelines and metric governance; able to partner with developers to ensure accurate event instrumentation and usage tracking.
- Strong communication and storytelling: translating data into insight and action.
- Organizational and process mindset: ability to design scalable, repeatable processes.
- Attention to detail and rigor - ensuring data correctness and consistency.
- Problem-solving in ambiguity - able to scope and manage undefined work.
- Collaboration, stakeholder empathy, influencing without formal authority.
- Business judgment: ability to prioritize what insights or metrics matter.
What Sets You Apart
- You focus on enabling others, removing friction so product teams can do their best work.
- You’re curious and thoughtful, using data to form ideas and guide discovery.
- You strike a balance between thoroughness and practicality, knowing when "good enough" is truly enough.
- You think in systems, seeing connections across teams and anticipating the ripple effects of change.
About Safe Software
Safe Software transforms organizations with FME, the only All-Data Any-AI Enterprise Integration Platform connecting all your data, anywhere, at any velocity.
With over 30 years of expertise and 25,000+ enterprise customers across 125+ countries, we simplify your data journey, wherever it leads.
Founded in 1993, Safe is headquartered in Surrey, BC with over 300 team members and counting. We’re always looking for talented individuals with diverse backgrounds who are determined to learn and grow. Are you ready to join the team?
Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
Safe Software is an equal opportunity employer and we truly believe that innovation and strength begin with diversity and inclusion.
We welcome all candidates regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, ability, disability, national or ethnic origin, political belief, religion, or family status.
Should you require accommodations during the recruitment process, please contact hr_dept@safe.com.
Notice Regarding Use of Automated Tools in Hiring
At Safe Software, we use automated tools to help us process applications and identify qualified candidates. These tools may assist in screening resumes and summarizing interview content based on the information you provide. This helps our team review applications efficiently while ensuring every candidate is considered based on the requirements of the role.
Please be assured that the final hiring decision is always made by a member of our team. For more information on how we protect your privacy, please see our policy. If you have questions about this process, please contact us at hr_dept@safe.com.
