Associate Product Manager
About SmartBarrel
At SmartBarrel, we're revolutionizing the construction industry with innovative technology designed specifically for job sites. Born from the need for efficient time tracking in construction, our mission is to bring workers and companies together through collaborative and transparent solutions. We pride ourselves on being approachable, knowledgeable, and passionate about making a tangible difference in day-to-day operations.
We are professional, agile, and focused on delivering high-quality products. Our work environment includes a modern office setting, food provided, work-from-home days, and growth opportunities.
Job summary
Our clients run payroll and job costing from the reports and integrations SmartBarrel produces. A wrong column, a missed overtime rule or a failed sync means a payroll correction for a crew on a construction site. You make sure that doesn't happen.
Every report and integration request from clients, Sales, Support and Implementation goes through you. You scope it, spec it so developers build it right the first time, test it against real data, and close it only when the client confirms it works. You'll work directly with our Integration & Reports Product Manager and learn construction payroll (overtime, per diem, earn codes, union rules) and how each client's payroll system expects its data.
This is not a role where you pass questions on to engineers. You read the API docs, run the call in Postman, query the data and come back with the answer. If you like finding the one bad row in 2,000 and asking "what happens when..." until there are no gaps left, this is your job.
Key responsibilities
- Own the queue: every report and integration request is scoped, prioritized and moving. Nothing stalls, nothing gets forgotten, and nobody has to ask where their request stands.
- Run discovery: review client sample files, export formats and API docs. Resolve every rule before development starts: row structure, PTO, open shifts, expenses, grouping, sorting, field mappings, sync timing.
- Write specs developers don't come back on: field-level mappings, sample payloads, acceptance criteria and Jira tickets that dev and QA can work from without asking questions.
- Test with real data: write QA test cases, including the edge cases that break payroll, and validate every report and sync against real sample data using SQL, Excel and Postman before it reaches the client.
- Configure and troubleshoot integrations: set up and test connections to payroll and ERP systems, read API responses and logs, and find exactly where a sync broke.
- Triage issues the same day: classify each issue from Support and Implementation as a bug, a data problem, a configuration problem or a new request, and route it.
- Close the loop: confirm with the client on a call that the report works before the ticket closes, and keep the changelog accurate: what changed, for which client and why.
- Grow into broader product work: research, requirements, specs and QA for features beyond reports.
Qualifications
- 1 to 3 years in product, data or business analysis, implementation, integrations/solutions engineering, QA or payroll operations
- Technical enough that engineers never have to translate for you: REST APIs, JSON/CSV/XML, authentication basics, Postman. You know what a 400 vs. a 500 means and you read API docs for fun or at least without fear
- SQL you can actually use: joins, aggregations, finding the record that doesn't match
- Very strong Excel: pivots, lookups, and spotting what's wrong in 2,000 rows
- A precise writer. Ambiguity in a spec is a bug waiting to happen
- Highly organized. You juggle dozens of open requests and always know which one matters most
- Comfortable talking directly with clients on calls
- Nice to have: payroll or construction background; experience with Vista, Spectrum, CMiC, Foundation, ADP or Paychex; Python or scripting; webhooks or iPaaS tools; Jira; bilingual English/Spanish or English/French
What we offer
- Competitive salary
- 401(k)
- Health, dental & vision insurance
- Flexible schedule
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Stock option eligibility (depending on role and experience)
- Opportunity to work with cutting-edge technologies in a dynamic and innovative environment
- Clear growth pathways and mentorship opportunities