Product Manager, Inventory & Orders
Product Manager, Inventory & Orders
Location: Chicago HQ, or US-remote
At FourKites we have the opportunity to tackle complex challenges with real-world impacts. Whether it’s medical supplies from Cardinal Health or groceries for Walmart, the FourKites platform helps customers operate global supply chains that are efficient, agile and sustainable.
Join a team of curious problem solvers that celebrates differences, leads with empathy and values inclusivity .
Role Overview
FourKites is building a next-generation Inventory & Orders module that gives supply chain teams unified, real-time visibility into on-hand stock, in-transit inventory, open orders, and stockout risk — across their entire network. We are looking for a Product Manager I to own day-to-day execution for this module: writing precise specifications, synthesizing customer discovery into prioritized backlogs, and partnering with engineering to ship features that help supply chain planners move from reactive firefighting to proactive decision-making.
This is a high-visibility role on a nascent product. You will work at the intersection of supply chain planning, procurement, and real-time logistics data — with your contributions directly shaping the foundational decisions of this offering.
Key Responsibilities
Product Execution & Specification
- Author detailed user stories, acceptance criteria, and feature specifications for capabilities such as safety stock threshold configuration, order-at-risk dashboards, and AI-assisted stock transfer recommendations.
- Translate ambiguous customer requirements into structured, engineering-ready backlog items with clear scope boundaries.
- Own sprint-level backlog grooming in collaboration with the engineering manager, ensuring tickets are well-defined and prioritized before each cycle.
Customer Discovery & Feedback Synthesis
- Conduct structured discovery sessions independently with supply chain planners, procurement leads, and operations teams.
- Synthesize raw customer feedback, field notes, and survey data into prioritized problem statements and product hypotheses.
- Maintain a continuous feedback loop with pilot customers during early rollouts, identifying adoption gaps and surfacing them as actionable product improvements.
Integration & Data Requirements
- Own integration requirement specifications — defining how data from ERP systems (SAP, Oracle), warehouse management systems, and demand planning tools flows into FourKites via flat-file SFTP, API, and EDI.
- Work with Solutions Engineering to validate integration feasibility, data freshness requirements, and schema mapping during pre-sales and onboarding.
- Identify and escalate data quality risks that could compromise dashboard accuracy during early customer deployments.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner closely with engineering, design, and Solutions Engineering throughout the feature lifecycle — from discovery through general availability.
- Coordinate with Customer Success during pilot rollouts to ensure smooth adoption and capture post-launch learnings.
- Support pre-sales activities by providing product clarity on capabilities, integration requirements, and roadmap direction.
Required Qualifications
- 3+ years of professional experience in product management, supply chain operations, procurement, or demand planning.
- Demonstrated understanding of inventory and procurement workflows — including safety stock parameters, days-of-supply calculations, MRP outputs, and order fulfillment processes.
- Ability to write clear, structured product specifications and acceptance criteria that engineering teams can execute without ambiguity.
- Comfort owning integration requirement discussions — understanding data flow, feed latency tradeoffs, and schema mapping without needing to write code.
- Experience working with B2B SaaS product tooling: Jira, Confluence, or equivalent.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with t