Title: Product Manager / Workday HCM
Locations: DC Metro Area, (Hybrid)
Experience: 10+ Years
Pay rate: ./hr on W2
Only Local candidates who are in DC/VA/MD who can got for F2F interview*
Role Overview
This is primarily a BAU-focused Product Manager role, rather than a role tied to one major implementation. The Product Manager will own and organize the ongoing HCM backlog, partner closely with business stakeholders, translate needs into actionable requirements/user stories, and help introduce stronger product management and Agile practices to the engineering team.
Key Responsibilities
- Take ownership of the HCM product backlog, including organizing, prioritizing, and grooming work for the engineering team.
- Create clear user stories and requirements with appropriate detail and acceptance criteria.
- Partner directly with business stakeholders to uncover and clarify new requirements.
- Guide stakeholders through conversations around the current-state process, business need, and desired future state rather than simply taking requirements at face value.
- Establish and mature product management processes and best practices across the product lifecycle.
- Support BAU enhancements across the broader HCM environment.
- Manage a specific business-funded initiative within the Talent Management space, including status tracking, timelines, requirements, and delivery coordination.
- Help the team with Agile practices, including backlog grooming, prioritization, capacity planning, and managing engineering capacity.
Required Experience / Skills
- Strong Product Management experience, ideally supporting enterprise applications or platforms.
- Hands-on Workday HCM experience.
- Strong understanding of the HR lifecycle and HCM business processes.
- Experience across areas such as Talent Management, Compensation, Recruiting, Learning & Development, and People Operations.
- Strong Agile experience, particularly backlog management/grooming, user stories, prioritization, and capacity planning.
- Ability to manage both ongoing BAU enhancements and a defined project/workstream.
- Excellent stakeholder communication and requirements-gathering skills.
- Ability to challenge, clarify, and guide business partners toward well-defined requirements.
- Comfortable working closely with engineering teams and bringing structure to a relatively new product management function.
*Candidate Profile / Interview Feedback
*Rani is looking for someone who is more of a hands-on Product Manager than a high-level Program Manager. A previous candidate had strong implementation/program-level experience and could speak to Agile, but the role requires someone comfortable getting into the details of backlog grooming, capacity planning, requirements, user stories, and day-to-day product ownership. Strong communication and HR lifecycle knowledge are particularly important.
