For product professionals struggling to balance strategy with a growing operational workload, a product ops assistant offers a transformative and cost-effective solution. This emerging product support role delivers direct and targeted operational assistance to individual product leaders, relieving teams of time-consuming tasks and empowering them to focus on strategy that ultimately drives more impactful results.

In the early days of tech, product managers were the ultimate "jack-of-all-trades," responsible for everything from strategy and feature prioritization to customer insights and even elements of project management. But as digital products and their surrounding ecosystems grew more intricate, so did the need for specialized support roles to handle this complexity. 

With the rise of Agile and Lean methodologies transforming the tech industry, the product development process has become faster and more collaborative, involving multiple stakeholders like engineering, design, marketing, and customer support. This shift highlighted the need for structured, streamlined processes to facilitate efficient cross-departmental collaboration.

The surge in data and feedback loops created a demand for data-savvy individuals who could extract insights for strategic product decisions. Finally, as the product management tool suite expanded, so did the need for someone to manage tools and vendors effectively. Thus, mirroring the evolution seen in Sales and Marketing Operations, product operations was born.

The evolution of product operations

Today, product operations roles encompass a broad spectrum of functions — from managing customer feedback to coordinating releases and ensuring compliance, among many others. The specific responsibilities can vary significantly from one company to another, adapting to address unique operational challenges.

For example, at Reddit, product ops focuses on coordinating product experiments and ensuring that experimentation is aligned with company goals. At Lever, the role is geared towards bridging the gap between support and engineering. Meanwhile, Uber’s product ops team places a strong emphasis on customer engagement, where product ops roles are directly responsible for talking to customers.

Despite these differences, the overarching goal across companies remains consistent. According to the Product Ops Manifesto, the purpose of product operations is “empowering product organizations to collectively, effectively, and efficiently drive the most meaningful outcomes for customers.”

As the product ops function continues to develop, new specialized roles are emerging to address distinct needs within product organizations. The product ops assistant is a pivotal new role in this evolution, created to provide targeted, hands-on operational support on a more personal level.

By taking on essential but time-consuming tasks that often drain resources across product functions, product ops assistants empower product professionals to stay focused on high-impact, strategic initiatives that make the best use of their expertise.

What is a product ops assistant? 

A 2019 survey by the Pragmatic Institute revealed that product professionals — from individual contributors to executives — believe they should be dedicating over half of their time to strategic tasks. However, in reality, only 27% of their time is spent on strategy, while the rest is consumed by operational tasks.

Product ops assistants are here to address this imbalance by alleviating the operational burden that falls on individual product professionals, such as CPOs, VPs of product, principal or product managers, senior product owners, and even interim or freelance product managers and consultants working with clients.

By taking on critical but time-consuming operational responsibilities, product ops assistants free up time for these professionals to focus on high-level initiatives that leverage their expertise — enabling them to nurture teams, refine product strategies, and ultimately drive business growth.

While executive assistants typically deliver personalized support focused on general administrative tasks that can be delegated, product ops assistants specialize in product management needs.

With a foundational understanding of Product Management and the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC), product ops assistants can contribute across many more areas than an executive assistant could, from ideation and experimentation processes to team workflows and onboarding plans. 

Yet, a notable distinction between product ops assistants and other product ops roles is that assistants work directly alongside specific individuals within the product team rather than being embedded in a separate, cross-functional operations team.

This proximity allows product professionals to directly influence how the assistant allocates their time and allows for flexibility in quickly adapting to meet evolving team needs and priorities.

Unlike traditional product ops roles that may demand expertise in data, experimentation, or project ownership, product ops assistants offer flexible, hands-on support without requiring a large budget or extensive experience. This approach makes the role cost-effective and opens up operational support to even smaller, resource-constrained teams. 

Key responsibilities of a product ops assistant 

The tasks a product ops assistant takes on are directly shaped by the specific needs of the product professional they’re supporting. The primary areas in which a product ops assistant can provide valuable support are extensive:

  1. Product development support

With a solid understanding of the Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC), product ops assistants are uniquely positioned to manage the operational side of product development. From documenting and standardizing release processes to coordinating updates and managing roadmaps, they help ensure that product milestones are communicated effectively and without bottlenecks.

  1. Team management 

Recruitment and onboarding are often overwhelming tasks for product leaders, but product ops assistants can provide essential support in building and integrating strong product teams. With a solid grasp of the unique roles within product organizations, they can take on tasks like drafting job descriptions, screening candidates, organizing interviews, and facilitating onboarding plans.

Their assistance extends beyond the hiring process; once new team members are onboarded, product ops assistants help ensure they are welcomed and supported, integrating them seamlessly into the team and organization.

  1. Customer feedback management 

A key challenge for product professionals is efficiently managing customer feedback without losing focus on high-level strategy. Product ops assistants can relieve this burden by setting up feedback collection systems, monitoring customer channels, and summarizing actionable insights.

This allows product people to stay customer-centric without being bogged down by the data-gathering process, giving them quick access to the information they need to make data-driven decisions.

  1. Stakeholders engagement 

As a key responsibility for product teams, keeping stakeholders informed and engaged can be time-consuming. Product ops assistants can help manage this responsibility by collaborating with product teams to map out key stakeholders, create engagement plans, and facilitate regular updates.

By taking over these operational aspects, they free up product professionals to focus on aligning strategies with stakeholder input, knowing that communication is being handled effectively and consistently.

  1. Goal-setting and alignment 

Clear and consistent goal-setting is essential for product teams to stay focused and make strategic decisions. Product ops assistants can support product leaders in documenting goals, setting up tracking systems, and providing regular progress updates.

This hands-on support ensures the team stays aligned with the organization’s priorities, while product professionals concentrate on long-term objectives, knowing that day-to-day tracking and updates are being managed.

At Sharpa, we maintain a comprehensive list of the key areas where a product ops assistant can make a significant impact, along with examples of specific tasks and activities that can be effectively delegated to them. 

What makes a strong candidate for a product ops assistant role?

Ideal candidates for product ops assistant roles come from product-centric fields, such as business analysis, product management, product operations, or UX/product design.

Familiarity with agile development practices, operational processes, and cross-functional communication is essential, along with analytical skills and a process-driven mindset. Strong organization, communication, and collaboration abilities enable product ops assistants to become seamless extensions of their teams.

Since this is a relatively new role, companies may need to invest in onboarding and development for these assistants. Internal candidates with a strong interest in product management or external hires with relevant experience can both be valuable additions with some targeted training.

Working with a service provider can be a great option to trial the role without committing extensive time and resources to recruitment or training. Using a product ops assistance service gives you access to immediate support and provides you with trained assistants who bring experience from various product environments and who have access to a community of ongoing learning, which accelerates their impact in your organization.

Empowering product professionals for strategic success

The role of a product ops assistant has the huge potential to make a meaningful difference for both product professionals and their organizations. By providing skilled operational support, product ops assistants allow professionals to focus on strategic priorities that drive growth and innovation instead of getting bogged down by administrative or repetitive tasks. Even small shifts in where product people invest their time can have a tremendous impact on team alignment, product quality, and overall efficiency. 

A dedicated product ops assistant doesn’t just fill a support role — they become a proactive partner who understands the unique challenges of product management and enables the team to achieve its goals more effectively.

When product professionals can devote themselves fully to shaping vision, mentoring their teams, and making critical decisions, they’re empowered to lead with greater clarity and impact. This, in turn, helps organizations to deliver exceptional products, sustain long-term success, and foster an environment of growth and adaptability.

If you’re interested in learning more about working with a product ops assistant, our team at Sharpa has created a free guide that will help you understand how operational support can enhance your leadership effectiveness, show you which tasks to delegate, and offer practical steps for integrating this role to achieve long-term impact in your organization.