Product Operations Manager at Backblaze

About Backblaze Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we’re helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back, and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands. Founded in 2007, we scaled the business with less than $3 million in outside funding until 2021, when we did a traditional IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Today, Backblaze generates over $100m in revenue and is the leading specialized storage cloud - managing over three billion gigabytes of data storage for 500K+ customers in 175+ countries, including businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals. But while there is a lot to celebrate in our past, there is almost as much opportunity ahead of us. We are seeking a Product Operations Manager to join our PMO team ! About The Role We are seeking a Product Operations Manager to orchestrate improvement to how our Product and Engineering organization operates at scale. In this role, you will drive the operating model that keeps Backblaze’s product delivery engine running effectively – streamlining processes of how work is planned and tracked, driving alignment in how launches are conducted, and improving how customer and market data and insights flow back into the product process. This is a senior individual contributor role with broad influence across R&D (Product Management, Product Design, Engineering) and its engagement with the GTM functions (Marketing, Customer Success, and Sales). You will serve as the connective tissue between teams, bringing structure, clarity, and momentum to some of our most important cross-functional work. What You'll Do: • R&D Operational Excellence: Optimize the shared terminology, documentation, tooling and processes for product planning and reporting: overseeing the pipeline from incoming ideas/requests through evaluation, prioritization, and delivery • Ensure cross-functional alignment on program goals, strategy, scope, timelines, and outcomes; maintain strong stakeholder communication and foster a culture of transparency and accountability • Facilitate quarterly planning meetings with cross-functional teams; support project and epics creation, work intake, and prioritization processes • Product Planning & Workflow Optimization: Standardize and continuously improve product development processes from discovery through delivery and iteration; optimize sprint rituals, roadmapping frameworks, and release cycles; identify and remove bottlenecks that slow Product + Engineering teams down • Release & Launch Coordination: Partner with Product, Marketing, Sales, and Support to coordinate cross-functional product launches; manage release calendars, internal enablement materials, and readiness reviews • Product Analytics & Insights: Compile key product metrics (activation, retention, engagement); manage R&D analytics tools, such as Pendo; partner with Data Engineering to enable data availability and ease of use in R&D via queries and dashboards • Customer Feedback & Voice of Customer: Centralize feedback from support, sales, surveys, and other channels; tag and organize insights into themes; ensure PMs have ready access to customer pain points and close the loop when features ship • Tooling & Systems Management: Own and evolve the Product and Program Management tooling stack (Aha, Jira, and others); evaluate new tools, maintain data hygiene, manage integrations, and train teams on best practices • Knowledge Management: Maintain product documentation and internal wikis; standardize templates (including PRDs and other artifacts); ensure institutional knowledge is captured and findable • AI Enablement: Encourage and enable AI adoption across planning, tooling, and workflows The Right Fit: • 5+ years of experience in Product Operations, Product Management, Program or Portfolio Management, or a closely related functions within a technology company • A track record of building and improving R&D operating models that help Product and Engineering teams move faster with more efficiency • Hands-on experience working across Product, Engineering, Design, and GTM – you know how to align people and teams across multiple organizations • Strong analytical chops: comfortable with product metrics, building dashboards, and turning data into clear insights for leadership • Proficiency with modern product and program tooling – Jira/Gitlab, Aha/Productboard, Confluence, and/or similar; experience with analytics platforms like Pendo • Experience coordinating product launches end-to-end, including cross-functional readiness, enablement, and communication • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including comfort in presenting to and writing for senior stakeholders • Highly organized and detail-oriented, with strong follow-through and the ability to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously • Comfortable operating in ambiguity and fast-paced environments — you can synthesize input from many directions and create structure where there isn’t any • Experience with Atlassian and Google product suites a plus At this point, we hope you're feeling excited about the job description you're reading. Even if you don't meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply. Learning, developing, and growing are key parts of our culture. We're eager to meet people who believe in our mission and can contribute to our team in various ways. We want people to feel comfortable expressing their true selves and to come, stay, and do their best work here. Backblaze Perks: • Annual Company bonus plan • RSU grants for full-time employees • Healthcare for family, including dental and vision • 401K • ESPP program • Flexible vacation policy • Maternity & paternity leave • MacBook Pro to use for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation • Childcare bonus (human children only) • Fertility treatment and support • Learning & development program • Commuter benefits • Culture that supports a healthy work-life balance To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts include candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials and may vary from the amounts listed below. The base pay range for this position is $138,000 - $175,000. At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries, but further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Backblaze Employee Privacy Notice.