Company Context
Here at the The Financial Times, gold-standard journalism is just the beginning. 500-people strong, our Product and Tech team keeps us ahead of the ever-changing digital landscape by delivering cutting-edge products to over one million digital subscribers every day. Our plans for growth rely on a diverse, dedicated and dynamic group of product, tech, delivery and data specialists - everyone’s welcome in this friendly, forward-thinking team. And with entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence and opportunity at every turn, there’s no limits to where your FT career will take you.
Learn more about the FT, including announcements and career opportunities, at aboutus.ft.com.
Position Summary
An exciting opportunity is available for a Senior Product Manager to help accelerate our growth across the FT Business Education portfolio.
A high-level product vision exists but your job will be to further define and execute on this vision, strategy, and roadmap for the next 1 to 3 years. The role will be based in our Sofia office, where the product development team will be based, and may require occasional travel to the London office.
You will play a key role working with senior commercial and editorial stakeholders, customer experience and technical teams to develop new ways to acquire and engage readers/ customers.
The role requires experience leading distributed teams in new product development from inception through to post-launch optimisation. You are a highly skilled communicator with proven ability to influence both multi-functional team members and stakeholders at a senior level.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
- Work closely with senior stakeholders to set business goals and success metrics
- Collaborate with multiple product teams to rapidly test hypotheses for reaching new customers
- Use insights from analytics, user research and the competitor landscape to inform decisions
- Create revenue opportunities by testing a range of acquisition based initiatives
- Maintain keen awareness of local digital trends and their potential for commercial application and improved user journeys
- Understand the priorities of other product managers, making connections in the relationships between streams of work; spotting opportunities to better align for bigger greater impact
- Explore, test and develop new functionality
- Help improve the usability of our website, e.g, https://rankings.ft.com, and our content management system — and make our work tasks more efficient.
- Deal with requests and bug fixes for improving our website and our content management system
Candidate Profile
You’re used to balancing the needs of the business against the needs of the customer. You care about the bottom line but you also care about maintaining a great user experience – and you know how to deliver on both. You know when to employ different approaches to product management, and can balance lean-style MVP experimental work with focused iteration.
You’ll provide support to your teams by setting clear objectives and key results, frequently monitoring progress, learning and adjusting course when needed.
Candidates must be able to demonstrate an understanding of digital and market trends and their significance to FT Products.
Essential
- A proven track record in data-informed product management role (3 - 5 years)
- You’re at home setting hypotheses, testing riskiest assumptions and breaking down complex problems into small steps
- Knowledge of the entire product lifecycle from insights/analysis, roadmap development, launch tactics, post launch iteration
- Highly developed influencing and negotiation skills
- You understand what it takes to get teams performing well, and at pace
- Great communication skills – able to clearly write and present documents targeted at various audiences
- Proactive, outcome-driven, with a can-do attitude
- Intellectually curious, with an ability to quickly spot opportunities and see them through to their natural conclusion
- The ability to work independently, but with regular support and collaboration with their manager
- The ability to balance workloads and priorities against incoming requests that may arise within Product & technology department
- Experience in working closely with commercial (B2B, B2C Marketing, Advertising) and Editorial teams to balance their needs against user needs.
- A proven ability to quickly get up and running in a domain and identify trends and opportunities in complex organisations
- Ability to remain calm and polite under pressure, especially when dealing with problems.
- Must care about accuracy, for example, when gathering product requirements. Attention to detail is key.
- Have a genuine interest in making tasks more efficient and improving the way we work.
- Must be able to prioritise effectively and stick to what is important when dealing with conflicting interests and priorities.
- Must be prepared to listen to all views from colleagues and get along with them.
Desirable
- Experience of line managing or coaching junior product managers for success
- Experience of working within high-growth digital businesses, ideally in media/publishing/startup culture
- You’ll cope well with ambiguity in a rapidly changing business environment
- Experience producing strong business justifications
An interest in the Education sector, ideally Business Education, or a desire to learn about the business education sector. Please view ft.com/business-education and rankings.ft.com.
In Return, We Can Offer You
- Annual bonus scheme
- 25 days annual paid leave
- 24/7 Employee Assistance Program
- Private Health Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Leave policy
- Food Vouchers
- Multisport Card
- Work-life balance and work from home practice
- Both in house and external training programs
- Your own training dedicated budget (for conferences, courses etc.)
Anything else?
Don’t forget to send over your CV!
The Financial Times Ltd. committed to equality of opportunity. We are determined to create a diverse group at all levels of our Company and we welcome all members of the community we serve to apply for openings with us.