Senior Product Manager

ABOUT AXIM COLLABORATIVE

Axim Collaborative is a nonprofit that transforms education to work pathways by facilitating collaboration and innovations to build an ecosystem of solutions to drive better outcomes for millions of learners. Axim is a joint endeavor between Harvard and MIT that evolved from the edX® Project, the pioneering online learning platform that launched in 2012. Axim also stewards the Open edX® platform, a highly scalable, free-to-use, open-source learning platform with the aim of making education accessible to everyone, everywhere. Today, the platform and community powers high-quality, innovative online learning for higher education institutions, governments, NGOs, and enterprises worldwide.

ABOUT THE SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER ROLE

Reporting to the VP of Engineering, the Senior Product Manager of the Open edX® Project will join a worldwide open-source community that is collaborating to build the leading open-source platform for learning online. In this role, they will own the full product development lifecycle for our broad-access bundle, with a goal of significantly increasing US market share by updating the platform with rich new features—including integrated content, comprehensive student support, and a modern credentialing system—all while maintaining a low-cost, high-quality offering with no per-learner fees. They will work closely with the Ecosystem Development, Engineering and Product teams to bring this work to fruition.

Axim is headquartered in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA. This role may be hybrid (for an employee based in MA, ME, NH, RI or VT) or remote (for an employee based in CO, MD or MI). This role requires travel to 6-8 events per year. Additionally, all staff are required to attend in-person programming in Axim’s Cambridge, MA office three times a year.

Strategy & Market Definition

• Own the vision, strategy, and product definition for a packaged Open edX® offering for community colleges and other broad-access institutions, translating market needs, institutional constraints, and ecosystem capabilities into a coherent solution.
• Conduct user and institutional research and ground the offering in how broad-access institutions actually operate in terms of procurement, budget cycles, staffing, and IT capacity.
• Map the institutional journey from evaluation through implementation and renewal, identifying where service is the constraint.
• Define and maintain a prioritized roadmap tied to adoption KPIs and Axim's 3-5 year plan.
• Design the offering to be sellable, serviceable, and low cost to operate at scale, including packaging and pricing that balance institutional affordability with sustainable delivery.
• Track competitive alternatives, commercial LMS, hosted Open edX® providers, and how they bundle technology and services.

Delivery & Adoption

• Lead complex, multi-team initiatives across Axim, ecosystem providers, and contractors; partner with engineering and design to ship, writing the requirements that earn stakeholder sign-off.
• Define the delivery model for bundled services, implementation, training, support, including who delivers each and how quality is assured.
• Drive go-to-market readiness: release notes, help content, and institutional onboarding materials.
• Partner with business development to qualify and close institutional opportunities, incorporating learning back into the offering.
• Own the business case: cost-to-serve, demand forecasts, and the trade-offs behind pricing decisions.

Leadership & Ecosystem Influence

• Contribute actively to Open edX® community groups and facilitate initiatives in relevant domains, aligning shared work with ecosystem providers and identifying relevant capabilities to fold into the offering.
• Earn and maintain core contributor status as a product leader in the community.
• Surface and communicate technical, cost, and cross-functional trade-offs; decide soundly but quickly, with community input.
• Adapt audience communication from engineers to college administrators to funders.
• Mentor Product Managers and strengthen team practice through thought partnership, product requirements document (PRD) review and feedback.