Product Manager, Consultant

About Blue Shield of California

As of January 2025, Blue Shield of California became a subsidiary of Ascendiun. Ascendiun is a nonprofit corporate entity that is the parent to a family of organizations including Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services company; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale healthcare solutions. Together, these organizations are referred to as the Ascendiun Family of Companies. 

At Blue Shield of California, our mission is to create a healthcare system worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. We are transforming health care in a way that genuinely serves our nonprofit mission by lowering costs, improving quality, and enhancing the member and physician experience. 

To achieve our mission, we foster an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute fully to address the needs of the various communities we serve. We are committed to creating and maintaining a supportive workplace that upholds our values and advances our goals.

Blue Shield is a U.S. News Best Company to work for, a Deloitte U.S. Best Managed Company and a Top 100 Inspiring Workplace. We were recognized by Fair360 as a Top Regional Company, and one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States by Points of Light. Here at Blue Shield, we strive to make a positive change across our industry and communities – join us!  

Our Values: 

• Honest. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical and integrity standards. We build trust by doing what we say we're going to do and by acknowledging and correcting where we fall short. 
• Human. We strive to listen and communicate effectively, showing empathy by understanding others' perspectives.
• Courageous. We stand up for what we believe in and are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitious goals. 

Physical Requirements:

Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.

Please click here for further physical requirement detail. 

Equal Employment Opportunity:

External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest records and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, State and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disability status and any other classification protected by Federal, State and local laws.

Your Role

 

The Health Plan Correspondence (HPC) Content & Composition team, part of Member Experience Transformation, manages controls, requirements, features, prioritization, and sequencing to enhance Blue Shield’s transactional communications, including ID cards, bills, and EOBs. The Product Manager, Consultant reports to the Sr. Manager, Product Management and owns the Smart Communications suite (SmartCOMM, SmartIQ, SmartPath, SmartHUB), leading platform strategy, roadmap, feature prioritization, and stakeholder alignment. This role partners closely with content/composition teams and IT to optimize platforms and support a digital-first correspondence strategy. We seek leaders who drive results through critical thinking, teamwork, and continuous learning, while fostering individual and organizational growth.

Our leadership model is about developing great leaders at all levels and creating opportunities for our people to grow – personally, professionally, and financially. We are looking for leaders that are energized by creative and critical thinking, building and sustaining high-performing teams, getting results the right way, and fostering continuous learning.

 

Your Work 

 

In this role, you will:

 

• Identify, understand, and develop ongoing key personas for product areas

• Exhibit natural and intuitive user empathy

• Determine and analyze KPIs at a product level to establish experience success, failures, and next steps through iteration

• Conduct secondary market research

• Own the Smart Communications product suite end-to-end, including platform strategy, roadmap development, feature prioritization, and release planning to ensure the products evolve in alignment with business needs and organizational goals

• Partner closely with content and composition management resources to understand operational needs, translate requirements into platform enhancements, and ensure the tools effectively support simplified, standardized, and compliant template output

• Serve as the primary liaison between HPC and IT to align platform architecture, data mapping, system integrations, deployment schedules, and technical dependencies across the Smart Communications ecosystem

• Utilize product management tools to create, manage, and prioritize agile team backlogs, ensuring work is sequenced to maximize value delivery and minimize risk across the correspondence portfolio

• Partner with Communications Governance, Legal, Mandates, and Compliance to ensure platform capabilities and configurations support regulatory requirements and that all changes are governed consistently

   

Your Knowledge and Experience

 

• Minimum 6 years of experience in Product Management, Management Consulting, or Entrepreneurship. 

• Requires a BA/BS in Business, Finance, Economics, Public Health, or Information Technology, or equivalent experience. 

• Graduate degree (e.g. MBA) is highly desirable.

• Experience with Smart Communications products (SmartCOMM, SmartIQ, SmartPath, SmartHUB) strongly preferred, with demonstrated ability to own and manage a composition platform suite end-to-end 

• Deep understanding of transactional output technology and formats such as batch, XML, JSON, XSD, Elastic, and ERM preferred 

• Strong process optimization skills to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and scalability 

• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and vendor relationship skills 

• Experience with agile methodologies and product management tools for backlog management and roadmap execution

 

Hybrid

 

This role requires employees to be in-office based on our hybrid workplace model, balancing purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. For most teams, this means coming into the office two days each week.

 

Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location will work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.