Posted 3w ago

Director of Product Development

@ EASE Logistics
Dublin, Ohio, United States
OnsiteFull Time
Responsibilities:owning roadmap, leading AI, managing teams
Requirements Summary:Bachelor's in CS or related; 10+ years progressive product management/software engineering with 3+ years senior leadership; experience building AI/ML products, ML Ops, cloud-native architectures (AWS/Azure/GCP); logistics tech experience preferred.
Technical Tools Mentioned:AMMI, AWS, Azure, GCP, McLeod TMS, TMS, WMS, EDI, CI/CD, ML Ops, Agile, Scrum, APIs
Save
Mark Applied
Hide Job
Report & Hide
Job Description

ESSENTIAL DUTIES



Product Vision & AMMI Platform Leadership




  • Own the product vision, strategy, and multi-year roadmap for AMMI, ensuring it evolves into an industry-leading, AI-enabled logistics toolkit.

  • Define and prioritize the product backlog based on SPEED impact, business value, customer need, and technical feasibility.

  • Serve as the internal champion for AMMI—articulating the platform’s value to internal stakeholders, leadership, and external partners.

  • Establish product governance and sprint cadence frameworks that align development velocity with enterprise priorities.

  • Translate the EASE growth strategy into a phased, deliverable-driven product roadmap with measurable outcomes tied to SPEED, customer retention, and operational leverage.

  • Drive product discovery and user research processes to ensure AMMI capabilities are built in response to real operational needs and market opportunities.



AI Strategy & Innovation




  • Co-own EASE’s enterprise AI strategy alongside the CSO, establishing a clear framework for how AI capabilities are identified, evaluated, integrated, and measured.

  • Lead the identification, evaluation, and management of AI vendors and technology partners, ensuring EASE maintains access to cutting-edge capabilities.

  • Build AMMI as a genuinely AI-native platform—embedding machine learning, predictive analytics, intelligent automation, and decision-support capabilities throughout the product stack.

  • Champion an experimental mindset across the product and development organization: hypothesis-driven development, rapid prototyping, structured pilots, and data-informed iteration.

  • Stay ahead of emerging AI trends in logistics and adjacent industries, translating market signals into actionable product investments.

  • Establish EASE’s internal AI governance framework, including model performance standards, responsible AI practices, and adoption measurement.



Build, Buy, & Partner Decisions




  • Own the build/buy/partner decision framework for new product capabilities, working closely with the CSO to evaluate the optimal path to each new capability.

  • Lead structured assessments of third-party solutions, open-source tooling, and partner integrations as alternatives or complements to internal development.

  • Evaluate and manage AI and technology vendor relationships, including capability assessments, commercial negotiation, performance accountability, and integration roadmaps.

  • Ensure all vendor and partner engagements are governed with clear SLAs, ROI expectations, and strategic alignment criteria.

  • Maintain a living technology partnership roadmap that reflects current integration priorities, partner performance, and evolving strategic fit.



Resource Strategy & Team Leadership




  • Lead and develop a high-performing internal product and engineering team, setting clear expectations, fostering a culture of accountability, and enabling team members to grow.

  • Design and implement a blended development resource model that strategically combines in-house talent with external development capacity to accelerate delivery and manage cost.

  • Manage external product development relationships, including performance oversight, scope management, and quality assurance, ensuring external teams operate as seamless extensions of the internal team.

  • Define onboarding standards, development norms, and collaboration practices that unify internal and external contributors under a shared operating model.

  • Partner with Finance and the CSO to manage the product development budget, forecasting capacity needs and balancing investment across internal headcount and external resources.



Data Science & Analytics




  • Own EASE’s data science capability, building internal expertise and platform infrastructure that transforms raw logistics data into predictive insight and autonomous action.

  • Lead the design and development of ML models, intelligent pricing tools, operational forecasting capabilities, and other data-driven product features within AMMI.

  • Establish a data product strategy that treats EASE’s proprietary data as a strategic asset—defining how it is captured, structured, surfaced, and operationalized.

  • Champion the use of data and experimentation in product decision-making, embedding A/B testing, analytics instrumentation, and model performance monitoring into the development lifecycle.

  • Ensure data science work is tightly connected to operational outcomes, with a clear line from model or feature to SPEED impact.



Pricing Science & Predictive Cost Modeling




  • Own the design, development, and continuous improvement of EASE's pricing science systems, including predictive cost models, dynamic rate engines, and margin optimization tools embedded within AMMI.

  • Lead the development of carrier cost prediction and lane-level pricing models that enable EASE to price with speed, accuracy, and confidence across all freight modes and markets.

  • Build and maintain a feedback loop between operational outcomes and pricing models—continuously retraining and improving model accuracy using real shipment, cost, and margin data.

  • Partner with Sales, Operations, and Finance to ensure pricing science capabilities are integrated into quoting workflows, sales tools, and executive reporting.

  • Build product capabilities that support and accelerate the RFP response process—enabling cost estimates to be generated faster, with greater accuracy, and with reduced manual processing effort.

  • Establish model performance standards, drift monitoring, and governance practices that ensure pricing models remain accurate, explainable, and aligned with business objectives.



SPEED Ownership & Product Performance




  • Treat SPEED (Shipments Per Ease Employee Daily) as the defining product KPI—ensuring every feature, release, and investment decision is evaluated against its anticipated contribution to SPEED.

  • Define product OKRs and delivery metrics that create a clear feedback loop between product development activity and measurable business outcomes.

  • Establish release cadence and product performance review processes that drive continuous improvement and hold the roadmap accountable to quarterly targets.

  • Partner with Operations and Sales to validate that new capabilities are adopted effectively and delivering intended value in the field.

  • Report to the CSO and executive leadership on product performance, roadmap progress, development velocity, and SPEED contributions.

  • Develop and maintain win/loss analytics capabilities within AMMI that give Sales and leadership accurate, timely insight into bid outcomes, pricing competitiveness, and revenue conversion patterns.



Cross-Functional Collaboration




  • Partner closely with the VP, Technology to ensure seamless alignment between new product development and the underlying systems, infrastructure, and internal tools that support them.

  • Collaborate with Sales, Customer Operations, and Marketing to ensure AMMI capabilities are understood, positioned, and adopted effectively.

  • Serve as a bridge between the technical and business domains—translating complex product and AI concepts into clear commercial and operational narratives for non-technical stakeholders.

  • Contribute to EASE’s go-to-market strategy by providing technical and product depth for sales enablement, RFP responses, and customer engagements where AMMI is a differentiator.

  • Partner with Sales and Operations to embed RFP response tooling into AMMI workflows, reducing the time and manual effort required to produce competitive, data-backed bids.



KPIs, Performance & Measurement




  • Define, monitor, and enforce accountability for KPIs related to system performance, uptime, project delivery, security, and deliverable outcomes.

  • Responsible for tracking product budget, forecasting, and spend.

  • Use data-driven insights to guide decision-making and continuous improvement.



Leadership and Supervisory Responsibilities




  • Lead and mentor the Product Development function, including internal engineers, product managers, data scientists, and external development resources.

  • Establish a high-accountability team culture grounded in EASE’s manifesto: execution is necessary, results are mandatory.

  • Create and maintain clear performance expectations, sprint cadences, and delivery commitments for all product development resources.

  • Partner with the executive team to ensure product strategy is tightly integrated with corporate strategy, commercial priorities, and operational goals.

  • Submit monthly leadership reports no later than the 7th calendar day of the following month.

  • Provide regular reporting to the CSO and executive leadership on product roadmap status, development velocity, resource utilization, and SPEED impact.

  • Build organizational capability by developing internal talent and structuring the team for scale as EASE grows.




  • Responsible for tracking product budget, forecasting, and spend.

  • Establish KPI’s for each individual on the product development team, establish AI adoption KPI’s to ensure and track ROI on projects and deliverables.