Application Guide
How to Apply for Lead Product Manager
at Workiva
🏢 About Workiva
Workiva is a leading SaaS company uniquely focused on streamlining integrated ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting, helping organizations achieve transparent climate impact disclosure and compliance. Their platform connects data, reporting, and compliance in a controlled, secure environment, making them a key player in the growing ESG and financial reporting technology space. Working here means contributing to solutions that address critical global challenges in corporate transparency and sustainability.
About This Role
This Lead Product Manager role is central to building Workiva's core financial data foundation, specifically focusing on ingestion, transformation, and linkage from systems like ERPs and consolidation engines. The role is impactful because it directly enables trusted, AI-ready data for downstream ESG and financial reporting, a critical capability for clients facing increasing regulatory and stakeholder pressure. You'll define the multi-year vision for how financial data flows into and is governed within the Workiva platform.
💡 A Day in the Life
A typical day might involve analyzing feedback from a discovery session with a corporate controller about challenges in mapping their SAP general ledger data, collaborating with engineering on the data model for a new ERP connector, and prioritizing backlog items for the next sprint to advance both immediate client needs and the multi-year vision for a traceable data lineage framework. You'll spend significant time translating complex financial data requirements into clear product specifications and strategic roadmap documents.
🚀 Application Tools
🎯 Who Workiva Is Looking For
- Has 8+ years in Product Management within enterprise SaaS, with deep, hands-on experience in the architecture and data models of major ERP systems (SAP, Oracle, Dynamics) and/or financial consolidation engines (Hyperion, OneStream, SAP BPC).
- Possesses a strong background in accounting, finance, or related software, enabling them to understand the complex needs of finance and controllership leaders regarding data governance, lineage, and standardization.
- Is a strategic thinker who can conduct deep customer discovery to identify pain points in upstream financial data processes and translate those into a prioritized product roadmap and backlog.
- Demonstrates a proven ability to make data-driven trade-off decisions that balance building a robust, traceable data foundation with delivering immediate customer value for reporting and insights.
📝 Tips for Applying to Workiva
Explicitly quantify your experience with specific ERP/consolidation platforms (e.g., 'Led product for SAP S/4HANA data integrations' or 'Designed data models for OneStream implementations') in your resume, mirroring the job description's terminology.
Tailor your resume achievements to show how you've built 'trusted, traceable, and AI-ready' data foundations or solved complex data governance and lineage challenges in past roles.
Research and reference Workiva's specific ESG reporting solutions (like their ESG reporting platform) in your cover letter to show you understand their market and how this data foundation role supports it.
Prepare specific examples of conducting 'deep customer discovery with finance and controllership leaders'—be ready to discuss methodologies and insights gained that led to product decisions.
Highlight any experience you have in the intersection of financial data and compliance/reporting frameworks (like SEC, EU taxonomy, SASB) to align with Workiva's compliance-focused mission.
✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter
['Your direct, hands-on experience with the architecture of specific ERP/consolidation systems and how it informs product strategy for data ingestion and transformation.', 'Your vision for building a governed, standardized financial data foundation that enables downstream applications, specifically linking it to ESG or integrated reporting outcomes.', 'A specific example of driving product strategy based on discovery with finance/controllership personas, highlighting an underserved need you identified and addressed.', "Why you are passionate about contributing to Workiva's mission of streamlining complex reporting and compliance through robust data management."]
Generate Cover Letter →🔍 Research Before Applying
To stand out, make sure you've researched:
- → Workiva's ESG solutions, reports, and client case studies to understand how financial data feeds their reporting products.
- → Recent news, earnings calls, or blog posts from Workiva leadership to grasp current strategic priorities and challenges.
- → The competitive landscape for integrated ESG and financial reporting platforms (e.g., how Workiva compares to others).
- → Key regulations and frameworks driving demand for transparent financial and ESG data (e.g., CSRD, SEC climate rules, IFRS S1/S2).
💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics
Based on this role, you may be asked about:
⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Presenting generic product management experience without concrete, detailed examples tied to ERP systems, financial data models, or accounting/consolidation software.
- Focusing solely on end-user reporting features without demonstrating deep understanding of the upstream 'plumbing'—data ingestion, transformation, and governance—that this role owns.
- Showing no knowledge of Workiva's core business in ESG and integrated reporting, or failing to connect the dots between this data foundation role and that company mission.
📅 Application Timeline
This position is open until filled. However, we recommend applying as soon as possible as roles at mission-driven organizations tend to fill quickly.
Typical hiring timeline:
Application Review
1-2 weeks
Initial Screening
Phone call or written assessment
Interviews
1-2 rounds, usually virtual
Offer
Congratulations!