Product Manager, Bruin Financial Aid IT Products

BUS SYS ANL 4 (000657)

UCPath Position ID: TBD_3956

Position Description History/Status

Approved Date:

2/26/2025 4:08:02 PM

Date Last Edited:

2/26/2025 4:07:59 PM

Last Action Effective Date:

Organization Details

Business Unit (Location):

LACMP

Organization Code:

5000O

Organization:

ADMINISTRATIVE VICE CHANCELLOR

Division Code:

5901D

Division:

ADMINISTRATION

Department:

455400 - IT SERVICES

Position Details

UCPath Position Number:

TBD_3956

Position Description ID

236898

UC Payroll Title:

BUS SYS ANL 4 (000657)

Personnel Program

Management and Senior Professional (MSP)

Salary Grade:

Grade 24

Job Code FLSA:

Exempt

Union Code (Collective Bargaining Unit):

99: Non-Represented (PPSM)

Employee Relations Code:

E: All Others - Not Confidential

Employee Class (Appt Type):

2 - Staff: Career

Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)

1

SUPERVISION

UCPath Reports to Position Number:

41097582

Reports to Payroll Title:

APPLICATIONS PROGR 4

UCPath Department Head Position Number:

40068309

Department Head Payroll Title:

INFO SYS MGR 4

GENERAL SUPERVISION - Indicates that the incumbent develops procedures for performance of variety of duties; or performs complex duties within established policy guidelines.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Product Manager, Bruin Financial Aid IT Products will play a critical role in defining the product strategy and execution of Bruin Financial Aid products and services to enable a streamlined application process, improved financial aid allocation efficiency, and an enhanced overall applicant experience, leading to increased enrollment and student satisfaction.

Product Strategy

This role is responsible to define the product vision, strategy, and roadmap with a focus on long term success of Admissions and Financial Aid products. They will bring the voice of the customer during roadmap development and backlog prioritization stages and collaborate with key product stakeholders incorporate their needs and convey a cohesive product vision.

Product Planning

The Product Manager will be responsible to define and establish clear and detailed product requirements, stories, security by design, and acceptability standards while working with stakeholders, business analysts, and UX/UI designers.

Product Development

The Product Manager is accountable for the successful delivery of the entire product lifecycle, working with development teams, product owners, team supervisors, and product development teams to ensure prioritized features are developed, secured, and compliant while maintaining a keen focus on human-centered design.

Customer and Stakeholder Management

The Bruin Financial Aid Product Manager will be responsible for driving innovation and excellence by working closely with cross-functional teams and stakeholders, understanding their needs, gathering user insights, and acting as a liaison between functional stakeholders and product development teams.

Human-Centered Design & Product Insights

Lastly, the Product Manager will maintain a keen focus building human-centered user experiences, ensuring accessibility and usability requirements are met. Additionally, they will define and track product metrics around adoption, customer satisfaction, and product performance in order to make data informed decisions to continually improve Admissions and Financial Aid products.

The Product Manager, Bruin Financial Aid IT Products will positively impact UCLA's operations and culture by enabling University stakeholders to effectively leverage human resources products and applications. This team member will advance the University's mission by delivering exceptional information technology services

comprehensively and consistently across faculty, staff, and students. This role will execute UCLA's vision while

modeling UCLA's culture and values.

Academic Technology sets the strategy for a portfolio of enterprise-wide products and platforms enabling the activities of academic stakeholders across the university. The Academic Technology team designs, develops, configures, enhances, optimizes, and maintains core enterprise technologies for UCLA’s academic functions (Admissions & Financial Aid, Student Records & Engagement, Billing & Accounts Receivable, Bruin Learn Center of Excellence, and Faculty Information Products), ensuring functionality, quality, business value, user experience, and digital accessibility of the products and platforms to meet the expectations of the campus community. Academic Technology fuels ITS’ cloud-first strategy by reducing technical debt in partnership with other departments and teams leveraging cutting-edge techniques to accelerate releases using automation and application lifecycle management standards and tools. 

The Student Products team includes Bruin Financial Aid products, student records & engagement products, and billing & accounts receivable (BAR) products. Student Products team supports essential campuswide functions like financial aid disbursement, admissions, billing, enrollment, grades, degrees, Bruin Learn integrations, voter registration, UCAN advocacy network, and cybersecurity training.

• Application Development and Integration: Build and maintain web applications (MyUCLA), integrate with existing systems (mainframes, Oracle SFP), and offer Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) functionalities for Bruin Learn.

• APIs and Data Management: Provide secure and easy-to-use APIs (SOAP, RESTful, and XML-based) for over 55 campus applications. Offer integration services with popular platforms like Salesforce work.com and Marketing Cloud. Manage Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms like Oracle SFP.

• Cloud Services and Security: Leverage AWS cloud services, including serverless database management and CDN content delivery networks, to optimize performance.

Product Strategy

• Defines product strategy, processes, and approaches to deliver a broad range of Admissions & Financial Aid. Participates in research to gain insights into user pain points, challenges, and needs, and builds and delivers solutions that meet new requirements and expectations.

• Leads efforts in evaluating new Bruin Financial Aid technologies and industry trends as they emerge and determine if and how they are applicable to current products or services.

• Participates in the development of the organization's long-range strategic Bruin Financial Aid product plans.

15%

Product Planning

• Defines user stories, prioritizes the product backlog, and ensures that the development work aligns with the business objectives.

• Makes decisions related to the development process, prioritization of features, and ensuring that the team is delivering value in line with business goals.

15%

Product Development

• Leads the planning, execution, and delivery of Bruin Financial Aid Product releases to improve the efficiency, transparency, and accuracy of the academic student journey and administrative processes. Works closely with development teams to ensure timely and high-quality results.

15%

Stakeholder Management

• Identifies, organizes, and leads discussions with key advisory groups and other customers / clients. Leads the identification of additional opportunities for value added product / service delivery based on customer / client / advisory group interaction and feedback.

15%

User Experience

• Promotes and adopts a human-centered design approach to product development, ensuring that we deliver accessible, frictionless, and delightful digital experiences

• May be assigned to one or more product categories.

10%

Problem Solving & Customer Service

• Demonstrates creativity and ingenuity in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining solutions to complex problems.

• Identifies and maintains balance between user needs, business goals, and technical realities of Bruin Financial Aid for diverse audiences.

10%

Continuous Improvement

• Supports continuous improvement, effective troubleshooting, and problem-solving, utilizing the latest industry technology and knowledge. Works collaboratively with designers, researchers, developers, business analysts, and other key stakeholders to deliver engaging experiences.

• Develops skills and abilities on an ongoing basis, maintaining currency on emerging technologies and product-strategy approaches.

• Stay informed about industry trends, best practices, and emerging technologies related to Admissions & Financial Aid.

5%

Project Planning & Management

• Develops project plans including goals, deliverables, resources, budget and timelines for launches of products, services or enhancements of diverse scope, size, impact, and budget.

• Collaborate with product vendors to ensure product enhancements align with organizational needs.

5%

Communications & Training

• Acts as product / service liaison across the organization, external agencies, and customers to ensure effective production, delivery and operation of new products, services and / or enhancements.

• Communicate product updates, changes, and release timelines to all relevant stakeholders.

5%

Other

• Actively contributes to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion across the organization and UCLA’s campus.

• Actively promotes the organization’s core values and consistently integrates innovation, employee fulfillment, teamwork, respect, excellence, integrity, service, and accountability into each aspect of their work.

• Maintains current knowledge of University policy and procedure; effectively, consistently and fairly applies University policy and/or campus/division procedures for assigned area and team members supervised; complies with University, Campus and division policies and procedures regarding privacy of information, authorized use of University resources and the security of University systems and data.

• Performs other responsibilities as requested and when necessary.

5%

0%

•

Performs other duties as assigned.

•

Complies with all policies and standards.

•

Complies with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Principles of Community.

•

This position description is not intended to be a complete list of all responsibilities, duties or skills required for the job and is subject to review and change at any time, with or without notice, in accordance with the needs of the organization.

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor's Degree

or equivalent combination of experience/training in one or more of the following fields: business administration, organization development, communication, or public administration, or related field. 

Required

Bachelor's Degree

In one or more of the following fields: business administration, organization development, communication, or public administration. 

Preferred

Five years

experience working in one or more of the following fields: information technology, application services, product services, computer science, computer information systems, or related field.

Required

Seven or more years

experience working in one or more of the following fields: information technology, application services, product services, computer science, computer information systems.

Preferred

Experience

in complex higher education environments, serving academic and administrative functions of a large public university.

Preferred

Advanced knowledge of Admissions & Financial Aid. Works closely with development teams to ensure timely and high-quality results.

Required

Proven ability to identify key issues critical to the organization's long-range success of a desired product or service.

Required

Analytical mindset, with experience in data-driven decision-making and performance measurement.

Required

Proven track record of delivering successful products that meet user needs and drive value.

Required

Strong written and verbal communication skills and is able to communicate complex technical ideas to a diverse community of colleagues and stakeholders. Can relay technical information to audiences of technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Required

Able to establish and advance positive working relationships and a strong rapport with a diverse community of colleagues including team members, stakeholders, and customers.

Required

Advanced organizational skills, ability to balance priorities, deliver concurrent projects to various stakeholders. Ability to work in a project-based environment using project management practices.

Required

Advanced problem-solving skills; ability to identify root problems and scope solutions based on knowledge of resources, timelines, vision and strategy. Seeks information from diverse sources to inform solutions. Demonstrated ability to make decisions with integrity.

Required

Able to participate in activities to advance an inclusive environment that values equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Required

Thinks creatively and introduces innovations such as the incorporation of new technologies or processes. Thrives in an ever-changing, fast-paced environment.

Required

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AND/OR CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

Background Check: Continued employment is contingent upon the completion of a satisfactory background investigation.

Live Scan Background Check: A Live Scan background check must be completed prior to the start of employment.

LOCATION AND PHYSICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, MENTAL (PEM) REQUIREMENTS

Environment and Work Location Information

Environment Type:

Non-Clinical Setting

Location Setting:

Campus

Location:

UCLA Wilshire Center

Standing/Walking

X

Sitting

X

Bending/Stooping

X

Squatting/Kneeling

X

Climbing

X

Lifting/Carrying/Push/Pull 0-25 lbs

X

Lifting/Carrying/Push/Pull 26-50 lbs

X

Lifting/Carrying/Push/Pull over 50 lbs

X

Physical requirements other

X

Chemicals, dust, gases, or fumes

X

Loud noise levels

X

Marked changes in humidity or temperature

X

Microwave/Radiation

X

Operating motor vehicles and/or equipment

X

Exposures other

X

Sustained attention and concentration

X

X

Complex problem solving/reasoning

X

X

Ability to organize & prioritize

X

X

Communication skills

X

X

Numerical skills

X

X

Mental demands other

X

X

Classification 3:  Position in which exposure to blood, body fluids or tissues is not part of the position description. The normal routine task involves no exposure to blood, body fluids or tissues and the employee can decline to perform tasks which involve a perceived risk without retribution.