Product Development Consultant

As a Product Development Consultant (PDC) within Workiva’s Growth Organization, you’ll play a key role in shaping the next generation of Workiva products designed to simplify complex work. This role focuses on early-stage product definition and validation, connecting customer insight, technical strategy, and business impact to turn emerging opportunities into scalable SaaS products.

You’ll help bridge the gap between concept and product readiness. This includes identifying market gaps, building prototypes, testing assumptions, and informing the go-to-market strategy. Success in this role requires strong product acumen, experience with data and AI technologies, and the ability to translate ambiguity into clear, actionable product direction.

What You’ll Do

Opportunity Identification & Market Insight

• Lead customer interviews, workshops, and data analysis to uncover unmet needs and product opportunities

• Translate insights into clear problem statements, business requirements, user stories, and product hypotheses

• Evaluate opportunities based on customer value, market potential, and technical feasibility
   

Product Design & Validation

• Define early product concepts, including workflows, data structures, and integration requirements, in partnership with engineering and design

• Outline MVP scope, success criteria, and validation plans for new product initiatives

• Build and test low- and high-fidelity prototypes to assess usability and business value
   

AI-Driven Product Development

• Define product requirements and user stories for AI-enabled features and automation

• Translate business intent into functional AI use cases (e.g., copilots, document intelligence, decision-support tools)

• Document model assumptions, governance requirements, and evaluation frameworks to support responsible AI development
   

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Act as the product liaison in customer and stakeholder discussions, articulating value propositions and technical trade-offs

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Design, and Marketing to test new product concepts through pilots and iterative experiments

• Synthesize learnings to refine product positioning, roadmap priorities, and development strategies
   

Measurement & Impact

• Define and track KPIs for validation-stage product initiatives.

• Lead retrospective reviews to capture learnings from both successful and failed experiments

• Provide recommendations that inform long-term roadmap and product portfolio decisions

What You’ll Need

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in a related field
  5+ years of experience in product management, technical consulting, or SaaS pre-sales

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of data infrastructure (SQL, data modeling, ETL/ELT) and modern data stacks (e.g., Spark, dbt, Snowflake) with experience in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

• Proficiency in Python or a similar language for prototyping or lightweight automation

• Experience contributing to AI/ML-enabled products or features.

• Familiarity with regulated industries (e.g., finance, audit, compliance) and ability to translate complex business requirements into intuitive software experiences

• Proven track record of driving SaaS product initiatives from concept to launch, ideally within innovation labs or new product development environments

• Experience building prototypes using low-/no-code tools (e.g., Figma, Retool, Streamlit) and lightweight scripting

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to simplify technical concepts for both internal and client-facing audiences

• Comfort working in fast-paced, ambiguous environments that require cross-functional leadership and decision-making

Travel Requirements & Working Conditions

• 20% travel for customer and internal meetings

• Reliable internet access for any period of time working remotely and not in a Workiva office