Senior Director, Product Development - Public Sector

Job Summary

Lumen is the trusted network for AI. We're transforming how businesses connect, secure, and scale in an AI-driven world. By connecting people, data, and applications quickly, securely, and effortlessly, we help organizations move faster and unlock what's next. At Lumen, people power progress.

Our culture is built on teamwork, trust, and transparency, giving you the flexibility, support, and opportunity to make a lasting impact. We're looking for top-tier talent ready to take on the challenge. Join us in building the future.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The Senior Director of Product Development - Public Sector is responsible for leading product strategy, development execution, and operating rigor across a portfolio of public-sector offerings.

This leader will define vision and roadmap, translate complex customer and regulatory requirements into scalable solutions, and drive cross-functional delivery from concept through launch and continuous improvement.

The role also establishes the measurement, KPI, and communication frameworks needed to provide executive visibility, improve delivery predictability, and ensure high-quality outcomes across product and program teams.

Success in this role requires strong public-sector domain knowledge, technical fluency, disciplined execution, and the ability to align engineering, operations, legal, and leadership around shared business objectives.

Strategic Product Leadership & Portfolio Management * Define and execute the product strategy for Public Sector offerings, aligning portfolio priorities with organizational goals, market demand, and customer mission outcomes. * Lead long-term roadmap planning across multiple initiatives, balancing innovation, regulatory requirements, technical feasibility, and business value. * Build business cases and investment priorities that support growth, differentiation, and scalable delivery for government and education customers.

Product Development, Program Delivery & Execution * Lead the end-to-end lifecycle across product and technical initiatives, from concept, validation, and requirements through development, launch, and iterative enhancement. * Oversee a portfolio of complex programs and product deliverables, ensuring timelines, dependencies, resource plans, and milestones are synchronized across teams. * Drive prioritization using customer insight, operational data, technical constraints, and business impact. * Ensure requirements are clearly defined and translated into actionable technical plans that support quality, compliance, security, accessibility, and usability standards.

Stakeholder Engagement, Communication & Governance * Serve as the central communication point across engineering, operations, sales, legal, and executive stakeholders, tailoring updates to technical and non-technical audiences. * Establish standardized reporting, governance, and executive communication mechanisms that create transparency around progress, risks, decisions, and outcomes.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Team Development * Lead, coach, and mentor product leaders, program managers, and cross-functional teams to deliver with consistency, accountability, and speed. * Partner closely with engineering, QA, operations, sales, marketing, finance, and legal to remove obstacles and enable seamless execution.

Performance, Metrics & Business Management * Define and manage KPI, measurement, and frameworks that provide visibility into delivery health, product performance, quality, cost efficiency, and business impact. * Track budgets, ROI, and resource allocation across multiple initiatives, ensuring effective prioritization and fiscal discipline. * Identify risks early, implement mitigation plans, and improve delivery predictability through consistent operating rhythms, tooling, and reporting.

What We Look For in a Candidate: Required Qualifications * 10+ years of leadership experience in product management, product development, technical program management, or a related discipline. * Proven success leading complex product portfolios and large-scale technical programs with multiple stakeholders and cross-functional dependencies. * Demonstrated ability to build and launch products from concept to scale while establishing delivery frameworks, KPIs, and operating mechanisms. * Strong understanding of government procurement, compliance, security, and policy requirements in public-sector or similarly regulated environments. * Exceptional communication, executive presence, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate technical complexity into clear business insight.

Preferred Qualifications * Experience supporting public-sector clients across federal, state, local, or education markets. * Understanding of government platforms, data security standards, and regulated delivery environments. * Experience implementing KPI dashboards, reporting frameworks, or workflow tools such as Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, Tableau, or similar platforms. * Background leading distributed, matrixed, or multi-disciplinary teams across product, engineering, and operations.