Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder

High Alpha Innovation partners with the world’s leading organizations to innovate through startup creation. Part strategy consultancy, part venture studio, our team is a diverse mix of highly experienced company builders, designers, and strategists who work with corporate and university partners to source, launch, and invest in venture studios and advantaged startups.

High Alpha Innovation and the University of Notre Dame have partnered together to establish a first-of-its-kind venture studio impact fund which was designed to align with Notre Dame’s vision, mission, and values, and to be a cornerstone for future innovation within the community. The goal of the 1842 Studio and Fund is to not just be an allocator of capital but to be partners that co-create startups that are aligned with the University of Notre Dame's strategic framework.

Our newest company, SlateUp, is seeking a Chief Product Officer (CPO) & Co-Founder to bring to market a talent marketplace designed to bridge the gap between entry-level, frontline workers and high-demand, family-sustaining jobs. The goal of this platform is to provide a clear path to career advancement and connect eager, high-potential talent with employers who are ready to invest in their development. We aim to launch in Notre Dame’s backyard in Indiana, where there’s a high concentration of manufacturing jobs and a pressing need for skilled workers.

As the CPO, you will partner with the CEO to develop and launch a mobile-first application designed to match job seekers with employers based on skills, provide access to upskilling opportunities, and improve retention rates for companies with a high number of frontline employees. We are targeting the manufacturing industry as the first customer as it is one industry that is facing a significant skills shortage. This is an opportunity to build a product from the ground up that can have a profound impact on both job seekers and employers.

You’ll be supported by the High Alpha Innovation team, who have seen exponential growth across a variety of SaaS platforms in multiple industries with successful exits along with the deep subject matter expertise, network, and credentials of the advising concept ideator.

As the CPO and Co-Founder, you will have the opportunity to turn the validated concept for SlateUp into a growing, important, and durable business, from the ground up. As the CPO you will work to build the MVP, hire a world-class team of software developers and product managers, and partner with the CEO to define the product roadmap and go-to-market strategy. This is a unique opportunity to be a creator, builder, and innovator to build a world-class product from scratch.

What You'll Do:

Own the Tech Stack and product development roadmap; Partner with the CEO on all technology-related matters and participate in sales presentations and customer meetings
Deliver product-related business objectives of the Company; Deliver projects on time and on budget; develop and manage OPX budget
Recruit technical and project management teams and provide training, mentoring, and management
Direct responsibility for the entire product lifecycle; Architecture, development, product management, DevOps, InfoSec, production release, and help desk functions
Develop the product roadmap and release schedule; build on, or change, the initial technological architecture
Maintain up-to-date product requirements and 3rd party libraries/ registries and APIs; Create a Product Specification and Technical Specification and keep both documents up to date (periodically).
Communicate technology, methodology/strategy, and data to customers, partners, and investors
Develop and maintain risk management and data protection processes
Privacy & security policies and procedures
Run Agile development sprints, backlog grooming, and planning sessions; accept and use customer and user feedback to optimize product features and functionality
Individual Contributor duties include but are not limited to; determining MVP technology requirements, ability to manage and run self-guided code as well as review of code developed by team members, code deployments, debugging (QC), production releases, and day-to-day management of outsourced development partners (at least initially).

Proven success as a CPO or CTO in a similar technical leadership role at an early-stage SaaS startup, specifically within a B2B or B2C marketplace, with a preference for experience in the HR or Talent tech industry
Product expertise, and a proven track record of creating user experiences that are sticky, drive adoption, and satisfy & delight users
Hands-on technical leader with experience developing cloud-native, API-first headless architecture
Direct supervision of agile software development; Business Requirements documentation and translation into executable development sprints, day-to-day team/scrum management
Track record of delivering development projects on time and on budget; proven ability to motivate teams and create a positive, challenging and enjoyable work environment
Full-stack development familiar with backend development frameworks such as JavaScript, Node.js, and React (Next.js) with experience in REST API design, integrating 3rd party APIs, working with diverse data structures and formats, and managing cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, Azure, or DigitalOcean).
Experience building teams from scratch as well as managing on-shore or off-shore development partners and budgets
Desire and ability to be customer-facing, comfortable directly engaging customers at all levels; business rules documentation through to C-level sales presentations with the ability to communicate complex subjects in a clear, concise manner
Founder experience is preferred or experience working in an early stage venture backed company in a key leadership role. Always ready to jump in and lend a hand and comfortable working in an ambiguous ~ ever-changing environment; A creator that gets personal satisfaction from building from the ground up.
Venture capital fundraising experience is required.
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

Salary plus equity plan
Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance
Flexible work location within the United States, with a Midwest preference
A collaborative, entrepreneurial environment with a proven venture studio playbook
A highly validated concept and business model hypothesis developed by our team, including verbal pilot commitments
Pre-seed funding committed by the 1842 Fund
The support of the venture studio and platform services, we surround the startup with world-class expertise in every discipline required to build a market-leading company

What we value :

WE BUILD

We make decisions with imperfect information and quickly move forward. We take action. We are comfortable with discomfort, and we measure our results in terms of what we build.

WE ARE BOLD

We seek, uncover, and speak truth. We are endlessly curious, we dream big and we lead through vision. Our ideas change the world.

WE CREATE OPPORTUNITY

We aim to create as much opportunity for as many people as possible, and we believe startups are a powerful vehicle for doing so. By creating opportunity, we create joy for ourselves, our loved ones, our corporate partners, and if we’re doing it right -- the world.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

High Alpha Innovation is an equal-opportunity employer, and we value diversity at our company. We do not just accept diverse backgrounds, we celebrate them. Our company, the work we do, and our partners benefit from the value of a diverse team. No team member's value lies alone in their diversity, and because we value diversity so highly, we reiterate that all hiring and employment decisions are made on merit, performance, competence, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

High Alpha Innovation

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CPO & Co-Founder (SlateUp, HR Tech in Manufacturing space)