Role overview

Timely is transforming how schools create master schedules by combining AI technology with expert scheduling knowledge. As Product Manager for the Optimizer, you will own the strategy, experience, and roadmap for the core optimization engine that helps school schedulers move from constraints to high-quality, feasible schedules. This role sits at the intersection of complex algorithmic systems and real-world customer needs, requiring you to bridge technical depth with product judgment.

Key responsibilities

Engage directly with school scheduler customers to identify opportunities for generating better schedules and understand their operational constraints and pain points.
Develop sufficient understanding of the optimizer technology and K–12 scheduling domain to make informed decisions alongside the engineering team and drive those decisions forward with accountability.
Partner with engineering to identify, refine, and prioritize improvements to the optimizer’s core algorithms, model builders, and orchestration pipeline that address user needs.
Design and execute experiments that validate optimizer changes, establishing consistent performance metrics such as feasibility rate, schedule quality scores, solve time, and constraint violations.
Define optimizer product requirements and features that build upon and inspire new computational capabilities, working with engineering to break requirements into well-defined stories and leveraging AI in the development workflow.
Own the end-to-end experience of how schedulers interact with the optimizer, including how results, tradeoffs, and edge cases are communicated and resolved.
Drive goal-setting and metric-definition processes with engineering, communicate product decisions with clarity to stakeholders, and foster a results-oriented team culture focused on delivering impact.

Requirements

Minimum 4 years of B2B SaaS product experience, with at least 3 years as a Product Manager.
Demonstrated experience working on products with an algorithmic, decision-support, or operations research core, with comfort partnering closely with engineering teams building solvers and optimization systems.
Strong data analysis and metric design skills, including the ability to design experiments and interpret results.
Proficiency in user-centric story writing and agile toolsets such as Jira, Notion, or Miro.
Experience using AI-enabled software development lifecycle practices to streamline discovery, definition, building, testing, and learning cycles.
Collaborative, detail-oriented approach to problem-solving with demonstrated visual communication skills such as mockups, diagrams, or journey maps.

What makes this role worth considering

You’ll work with an exceptional team addressing a meaningful challenge in education at a financially healthy, fast-growing company with strong product-market fit. Timely serves districts and charter school organizations across 20+ states with industry-leading growth and renewal rates, offering the opportunity to have real impact on how thousands of educators and students experience their school day.