Group Product Manager

About Us

Here at the FT, gold-standard journalism is just the beginning. 600-people strong, our Product & Tech team keeps us ahead of the constantly evolving digital landscape by delivering innovative products to over one million digital subscribers every day. Our growth plans 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 ambitious spirit, intelligence and opportunity at every turn, there’s no limits to where your FT career will take you.

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The Role Overview

We have an exciting new role for an experienced Group Product Manager in FT Core - FT’s platform software group. As part of the role you will be responsible for three platform domains, balancing hands-on product management with the management of your team to help take an exciting new strategy forward. It is a key leadership role in FT Core with significant influence on the direction and the outcomes of those three domains. 

As part of the role, you will be responsible for setting out a vision for an exciting set of new platform products and driving it. You will talk to customers and internal partners as well as look at the existing data to help shape that vision and to find opportunities for new platform software solutions and improvements to existing ones. You will form strong relationships with your immediate teammates in product management, engineering, and business analysis as well as with the wider team in delivery, design, research, and analytics and work together to validate opportunities for new products and features to make sure we only build what’s worth building. 

In order to be successful in the role you would need to be able to orient quickly in a complex environment that would require you to identify and balance internal stakeholder needs, impact for the business, and value for our end users and customers. You will be required to take initiative and quickly and confidently make decisions when it’s called for.

As an experienced Product Manager, we expect you to have strong technical proficiency - not necessarily having a software engineering background, but having genuine interest in getting to the bottom of how things work.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

In this role you will:

• Run a large complex portfolio of platform products, capabilities, and services

• Lead a team of Product Managers and one Business Analyst

• Work in collaboration with the Director of Product and your team to define a product vision for your portfolio that is aligned to the company strategy

• Be the voice of the customer (both external and internal), developing an in depth understanding of the way they interact with our products/services

• Define, track and analyse success metrics while feeding back outcomes into the product process

• Lead the prioritisation of the product backlog in your remit, in line with the company strategy and what creates most value for our users

• Build and communicate your product roadmaps to stakeholders

• Inform yourself and your team of market development

• Contribute industry ‘standard methodology’ into the product development process. 

Candidate profile

Essential

• At least five years of product management experience with a track record of initiating, building, and launching successful products

• At least three years of management of other Product Managers

• At least two years of product management experience in a platform environment or with technical products targeted at engineers

• Entrepreneurial attitude and ability to orient yourself and others in a dynamic and fast-paced environment

• Knowledge of how subscription businesses work

• A consistent track record of defining and improving key business metrics

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Developed influencing and negotiation skills

• Confident leading meetings and workshops

Desirable

• Knowledge of the media industry and of how large media companies operate

What’s in it for you? Our Benefits

• Annual bonus scheme
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program
• 25 days annual paid leave
• Private Health Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Enhanced Parental 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.)

Further Information

The FT is committed to providing an inclusive working environment for all. We are an equal opportunities employer who seeks to recruit and appoint the best talent regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We have implemented a hybrid working model and we also promote flexible working and will consider specific requests around flexibility for all roles where it can be accommodated. Please let us know if you require any adjustments as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements, or have any questions, please send an email to [email protected] and a member of our team will be happy to help.