Associate Product Manager (ELA/Socials)

At Nelson, we’ve been shaping the future of education for children and youth across Canada for over 110 years. As the country’s largest K-12 education content provider, we remain dedicated to our legacy of looking forward, paving the way in creating boundless, accessible, and engaging learning experiences for all.

Our innovative solutions, including Edwin, our digital learning platform, provide curriculum-aligned content that support diverse learning styles while fostering critical thinking, creativity, and lifelong learning. We listen intently to the unique needs of educators, students, and administrators everywhere, and continuously evolve what we do and build to improve their lives daily.

When we’re searching for individuals to join our team, we look for bold, innovative team players with a passion for education and making a positive difference in our communities. If this sounds like you, we want to hear from you! Apply to join our team today. Let’s Create Possible, one learner at a time.

About the Role

As Associate Product Manager on the Product team, reporting to the Vice President Content & Curriculum K12, you are passionate about education and will work with a dynamic team to help create innovative e-learning solutions for use in classrooms across Canada. You are responsible in collaboration for the identification, conceptualization, validation, and strategic development of new e-learning resources and educational solutions across the ELA and Social Studies portfolio. You will participate in budgeting new projects, collaborating on defining the pedagogy and instructional design, identify and develop new authors, reviewers, subject matter experts, and thought leaders in the subject area. The role will involve conducting market research to deeply understand customer needs and shifts in curriculum and pedagogy to develop highly valued Edwin e-learning resources that grow and retain our customer base. We are looking for a candidate who is results-oriented, strategic problem-solver, gifted at understanding teaching and learning in a digital learning classroom, innovator, creative thinker, great project manager and has strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Key Accountabilities

In close collaboration with the VP Content & Curriculum, you will execute:

Comprehensive Market Research and Product Conceptualization (20%):

• Utilize a range of research tools (e.g., field calls, focus groups, surveys, concept or prototype reviews, product testing, industry best practice review, user data, internal market feedback, classroom observation, attending subject area conferences) to identify and validate student and teacher personas, identify new e-learning resource opportunities that enable a personalized, student and teacher centric experiences that save teachers time, understand customer curriculum interpretation, and pedagogical and instructional best practices to drive business growth and retention.

Business Case Development & Project Budgeting (5%):

• Identify project specifications and collaborate with Product team for the development of budgets, business case, and feature and functionality needs.

Product-in-Development Leadership (40%):

• Lead the end-to-end development of digital student learning experiences and teacher instructional resources.

• Drive all phases of product design and creation—from visioning and content development to review and refinement—ensuring alignment with strategic goals and customer needs to increase student engagement and achievement while saving teacher's time.

• Define, manage, and prioritize product and user requirements.

• Communicate a clear, data-informed product roadmap to internal stakeholders, securing alignment across Leadership, Product, and Commercial teams.

• Responsible for supporting the design of structured and coherent product learning pathways by mapping topics, sequencing lessons, and crafting clear learning objectives to ensure logical progression within each course. Courses are aligned to the curriculum with a clear progression of difficulty and complexity.

• Coordinate with internal teams to deliver high-quality e-learning resources, continuously optimizing product development workflows, leveraging internal AI tools, while accelerating time-to-market through iterative development.

• Monitor learning resource development progress, proactively resolving blockers. Serve as the escalation point for critical product and customer issues, maintaining momentum and quality under pressure.

Author/Reviewer/Subject Matter Expert Acquisition and Relationship Management (30%):

• Identify, sign, manage and cultivate key authors, reviewers, subject matter experts, key customer influencers and thought leaders to meet e-learning resource expectations of customers while ensuring optimal product positioning in market.

Market Launch Initiatives (5%):

• In collaboration with Product Marketing Manager, develop product related supports (ie. Key learning resource benefits, instructional overview, testimonials from reviewers or authors, ways to position resources, resource FAQ’s, resource implementation tools and presentations, sales training material, etc.) for market-facing initiatives.

• University degree is required

• Minimum 3 years’ experience in K-12 educational Ed-Tech market with experience working directly with content creators

• K-12 teaching experience

• Strong organizational skills and project management experience an asset

• Results-oriented, strategic problem-solver, innovator, creative thinker and has strong interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal)

• Current understanding and knowledge of digital technologies, AI, digital learning tools, how students learn best in a digital environment, and other multi-media applications

• Knowledge and understanding of the Canadian K–12 landscape, including various Canadian curricula, effective instructional practices, and emerging educational trends, technologies, teaching, learning, and assessment strategies

• Ability to clearly synthesize and communicate market needs and trends

• Ability to quickly separate opportunity from ambiguity and to filter market ‘noise’

• Exceptional relationship management skills, including recruiting, managing, and mentoring internal and external authors, reviewers, editors, subject matter experts, and digital content developers

• Exceptional problem-solving skills and risk-mitigation skills

• Entrepreneurial spirit

• Ability and willingness to travel

• Experience with SCRUM an asset

• Ability to handle a high volume of work in a short period of time, handle multiple priorities simultaneously, be flexible to pivot priorities as needed to meet corporate goals, and operate in a demanding work environment is important

• French an asset

Compensation

The base salary range for this contract position starts at $85,000 per annum based on experience. This position may also be eligible for performance-related incentive pay. Compensation is part of our broader Total Rewards package, which includes benefits and programs that support employee well-being and growth.

What We Offer

At Nelson, we believe in taking care of our people. Your well-being, growth, and work-life balance matter to us, which is why we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support you—professionally and personally.

The below benefits apply to this temporary contract position.

• This role is primarily on-site with some hybrid flexibility, M-F, standard business hours
• Commuter friendly location (Sheppard & Don Mills)
• Free parking on-site
• Free, convenient shuttle bus service from Don Mills Subway Station to and from the office
• Access to on-site fitness center and fitness classes
• Access to Linkedin Learning for continuous skill growth
• Mentorship and professional development opportunities
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing confidential support spanning from mental health services to financial counselling, and many things in-between.
  

Don't have 100% of the above qualifications? Do you still think Nelson is a great fit for you? We encourage you to apply anyway!

Our EDI Statement

Nelson teaches the world by learning from everyone in it.

• We are committed to fostering an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workplace environment. This is an integral part of our company’s culture and mission that aligns with our four key pillars of Employee Diversity, Developing Authentic and Accurate Content, Amplifying External Voices, and Supporting the Local Community and Beyond.
• We believe in the power of education and our ability to impact social change. Truth, honesty, integrity, and respect guide our decisions and actions in the development of learning solutions that empower success for all educators and learners.
• We value a respectful, inclusive, and safe workplace that nurtures belonging and represents many different cultures, backgrounds, perspectives, and opinions. Everyone is free to be who they are.
• We foster and continue to build relationships that are equitable, diverse, and inclusive with existing and future partners in education.
• We commit to holding ourselves accountable by creating measurable short and long-term goals that place equity, diversity, and inclusion at the core of what we do in our resources, the workplace, the educational community, and in the larger society.
• We strive to build an inclusive world for everyone. We are stronger together.
  

AI and Automated Hiring Tools

Nelson uses AI support tools in our applicant tracking system to help with tasks such as summarizing points and anonymizing applications. All candidate screening, assessments, and hiring decisions are done by people.

Interview Outcome Notification
Nelson is committed to keeping candidates informed. All candidates who attend an interview for a publicly advertised role will be notified of the outcome of their candidacy. Candidates will be notified of the hiring decision no later than 45 days after the last interview.

Our Commitment

Nelson is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to Inclusion, Equity and Diversity. As part of this commitment, we do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, gender, gender identity, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship, veteran status, or disability status.

Should you require any accommodation during our recruitment and selection process, please reach out to peopleandengagement@nelson.com.