Director of Product Operations

About this role

Gordian is evolving how we build and manage products, moving toward durable product teams with clearer business accountability, stronger customer orientation, faster learning cycles, and increasingly AI-enabled ways of working.
The Director of Product Operations will build and run the operating system for the Product organization.
This leader will translate product strategy into repeatable mechanisms for planning, prioritization, execution, measurement and learning. The role will connect Product, Engineering, Design and our go-to-market organizations so that teams have the standards, insights, tools and operating rhythms required to deliver measurable customer and business outcomes.
This is not a traditional PMO role. Success is not measured by producing status reports or administering process. It is measured by whether product teams make better decisions, execute with greater speed and predictability, and deliver stronger outcomes.
The role anchors the Product Center of Excellence and partners closely with Product Unit leaders, Engineering Leaders and the CPO to continuously improve how Gordian builds products.
What You Will Own
1. Product Operating System & xDLC
Own and continuously improve Gordian's product development lifecycle and operating model from idea through discovery, development, launch, adoption and iteration.

• Establish a simple, scalable xDLC spanning Product, Engineering and Design.

• Define the minimum standards, decision points and artifacts required at each lifecycle stage.

• Create clear mechanisms for moving ideas from strategic opportunity through validation, investment and delivery.

• Reduce unnecessary handoffs, meetings and process overhead.

• Drive adoption of AI-native workflows that improve product discovery, analysis, documentation and execution.

The objective is greater velocity of learning, not more process.
2. Portfolio Planning & Investment Governance
Create the mechanisms that connect company strategy to product investment.

• Run the annual and quarterly product planning processes.

• Establish consistent prioritization and investment frameworks across product units.

• Provide portfolio-level visibility into strategic initiatives, investment, capacity, risks and expected outcomes.

• Facilitate portfolio trade-off decisions with Product and Technology leadership.

• Maintain clear decision records and accountability for major product investments.

• Ensure teams can clearly connect roadmap investments to customer, strategic and financial outcomes.

3. Product Performance & Analytics
Create a single, trusted view of product performance.
Partner with Product Unit leaders, Finance and Technology to define and operationalize metrics such as:

• Product adoption and engagement

• High Value Actions

• New Product Revenue and recurring revenue contribution

• Customer outcomes

• Product delivery effectiveness

• Discovery and learning velocity

• Roadmap investment and capacity

• Product quality and operational health

Turn these measures into actionable insights for Product leadership rather than simply creating dashboards.
4. Product Management Excellence
Build the systems that make every Gordian Product Manager better.

• Establish common Product Management expectations, competencies and career frameworks.

• Standardize essential product practices while preserving autonomy within product units.

• Create reusable methods and playbooks for discovery, VOC, segmentation, business cases, prioritization, roadmaps and product measurement.

• Build onboarding and ongoing development programs for PMs.

• Establish communities of practice that accelerate learning across product units.

• Partner with Product leadership on capability assessment and organizational development.

5. Product & Engineering Operating Rhythm
Partner closely with Technology leadership to create a common Product + Engineering operating cadence.

• Establish portfolio and product-unit reviews focused on outcomes, decisions, risks and learning.

• Create transparency into commitments, dependencies and delivery health.

• Identify systemic bottlenecks and continuously improve how work flows through the organization.

• Partner on appropriate delivery and engineering effectiveness measures.

• Ensure executive reviews focus on decisions and intervention rather than status reporting.

6. Product Tooling & AI Enablement
Own the strategy for the Product organization's operating toolchain.

• Simplify and rationalize product-management tools, workflows and data.

• Establish common information architecture and governance.

• Automate repetitive product-management and reporting work wherever practical.

• Drive adoption of AI-enabled product workflows.

• Experiment with new methods that meaningfully increase PM leverage and organizational learning.

7. Product Operations Team Leadership
Lead and develop the Product Operations organization.

• Set a clear charter and priorities for Product Operations.

• Develop the capabilities of the team.

• Clarify which activities should be centralized versus embedded within product units.

• Eliminate low-value administrative activity.

• Build a high-leverage team that improves the effectiveness of the broader Product organization.

What Success Looks Like

Strategy is executable.
Every major product investment has a clear customer problem, business outcome, owner and measure of success.

Leaders can see the portfolio.
The CPO, CTO and Business Unit leaders have reliable visibility into investment, progress, risks, capacity and outcomes.

Teams spend less time managing process.
Operating mechanisms remove friction rather than introduce bureaucracy.

Product decisions become evidence-driven.
Customer insights, product usage, commercial performance and delivery data inform prioritization.

Product + Engineering operate as one system.
Planning, delivery and measurement are shared rather than operating through functional handoffs.

PM capability…