Product People provides Interim Product Management services for parental leaves or slow hiring. We do the unglamorous hands-on work of a Product Manager/Owner or Product Leader on an interim/fractional basis at ~100 different companies per year. We serve clients only via our in-house Product Managers who onboard fast, align teams, and deliver outcomes. Clients include Zalando, DeepL, Ecosia and the World Health Organization (WHO).

About the Role

Help Product People a category-defining company in the consulting space. When people think of electric cars, they think of Tesla. For music, it’s Spotify. When thinking about Product Management, they should think of Product People. You’ll own or contribute to initiatives to lead us there: playbooks, product management knowledge sharing, networking, process automation, etc.

• Serve as an Interim Senior Product Manager.
• We serve post-product market-fit digital-first companies ranging from series B to publicly listed.
• Some are category leaders and/or leverage the latest tech trends.
• You’ll be driving complex cross-functional initiatives in B2C or B2B products.

It can be anything from setting and reaching quarterly OKRs at a scale-up to Continuous Discovery/Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) or A/B tests elsewhere. Or unblocking stuck initiatives. Solve for the clients and our company. Prioritize, zoom in and out. Make an incredible impact, bring clarity in chaos, and orchestrate flawless execution. Manage discovery and delivery for three parallel streams (internally and externally). You are good at unglamorous hands-on work and strategy. You understand how deep or wide you need to go when that’s the case and when it’s not. Effectively manage various groups consisting of strong personalities. Adapt to their communication preferences. Integrate quickly and feel part of any team in days, not weeks. People love working with you and would work with you again despite you saying “no” to them a lot. Always come off as friendly, helpful, and accommodating, even when pushing back on irrational demands.

Communicate a compelling narrative about the product. And each existing or potential feature/capability you manage: “What job/problem does it solve?”, “For whom?”, “How big is the problem/market?”, “What is success?” and why solving this matters in the first place. Understand, share, and shape strategic or business context with the client’s CPO/VP/Director/Head of Product. Coach the next generation of PMs. Train, mentor, and delegate relentlessly to help our (Associate) Product Managers strengthen their skills. Manage 1-6 people depending on tenure, performance reviews, and career ambitions. Collaborate with 2-3 colleagues daily. Break down complex initiatives into manageable, quantifiable work for the team. We use the teaching hospital method (watch, do it yourself under supervision, teach others to do it). Rinse and repeat. Go on a new mission with a new client or in a new team, new domain, new product, or initiative every 3-6 months. Continue sharpening your edge and actively helping Product People’s internal initiatives.

About You

• Fixing the Mess in a High-ownership, High-visibility Role. Like Marie Kondo, we come in when there’s a mess. People go to the doctor too late; clients bring externals when they are already in some pain. Few clients do preventive care. You create structure from chaos. You find these adventures exciting and make this the time of your life.
• Optimism as an Operating System. You have a high-happiness resting point. You handle high-pressure situations and difficult people with timely, and composed reactions. Our job is “humans all the way down”. No client wants to bring in a pessimistic, cynical, or attacking consultant. They expect a politely relentless and cheerful style.
• Driven, Collaborative, Kind, Direct and Open Communication. People leave higher-paying jobs to work with you again. Clients you work with recommend us to other clients. We give constructive and immediate feedback to help each other grow and do excellent work for our clients. We expect that you give/accept it graciously, learn, and adapt quickly.
• Context Switching Ninja. You absorb information and make decisions quickly. We won’t ever have all our clients’ context on internal priorities and politics. Clients will surprise you since we don’t catch them at their most organized times (hyper-growth, mergers & acquisitions, staff transitions). Nevertheless, you can deep dive with engineers, context switches to explain the overall idea to a stakeholder, and then switch again to explain the sequencing of the idea to senior leadership.
• Commercial Leadership. You understand how companies make money and grow, know which levers to pull with a product mindset, and are pragmatic and outcome-oriented.

What Makes Us Special

• Accelerated personal and career growth. See behind the curtain of Europe’s most exciting companies, from series B to publicly listed—10x your learning and network by working on many digital products, both B2B and B2C.
• Amazing culture. We have a supportive, high-performance, and open culture. It starts with onboarding you well. We hire and retain the best people living our values while counseling to leave those happier elsewhere. We share knowledge generously while being excellent and candid with each other. We encourage the best calendar practices with efficient 15-minute meetings, blocks for focus time, and meeting-free Fridays.
• Distributed-first. We work remotely and meet in person every 6 months for a weeklong team retreat in a great location. Team members from the same city/country meet every 1-3 months to co-work and expense the lunch/dinner.
• We operate on Central European Time, and our team values effective collaboration. To ensure seamless communication and teamwork, and support a sustainable lifestyle, we accommodate a maximum time difference of +4.5 hours / -1 to -2 hours. Please consider this when applying for the position.
• Germany Relocation after 24+ months (optional). We sponsor a relocation to Berlin, Germany for team members at L4+ levels who’ve been with our firm for at least 24 months. Should you decide to relocate on your own before being eligible for our support, we can only change your work contract to the German one after you have your visa and paperwork in order.
• Sabbaticals. Take 1-3 months of unpaid leave anytime; we’ll cover your health insurance. And you get an extra paid month off every 3 years of tenure.

Compensation

Based on the location of tax residence and level. The exact level is defined based on the skills and knowledge demonstrated within the hiring process, which includes unbiased blind review. To ensure fairness, the salaries are the same for everyone within the same level and Location Cluster. See our transparent salaries.

• Tenure-Based Compensation Increase. A 5% increase after 12 months and a 10% increase after 24 months of tenure. Resets and restarts when promoted to the next level.
• Uncapped bonuses (quarterly). We usually pay ~€25,000/quarter in bonuses to team members. These are transparently shared across our organization. (e.g., €3,000 employee referral, €1,000 client expansion, €1,000 when a client returns, etc.). To be eligible the team member must be at Product People at the end of quarter, and not pending an exit (resignation, termination, counsel to leave).
• Profit participation (yearly). In March, we split a % of last year’s profit between all eligible employees 12+ months of tenure at the time of the payout and not pending an exit (resignation, termination, counsel to leave).

Growth Opportunities

• Measurement of success. We prioritize continuous growth and feedback. Regular performance appraisals are led by line managers and VP/Director of Product and involve monthly reviews of a 3-month development plan focusing on skill growth. Evaluations encompass 360 feedback, client feedback in conjunction with internal reviews, direct observations by managers, and adherence to Product People Leveling Expectations.
• Promotions. To be promoted, meet the role’s tenure criteria, demonstrate performance at the next level for 6 months, and submit an approved promotion case. We have a strong track record of promoting people from within and taking team members from Associate to Product Manager or from Senior to Director of Product during their successful tenures at Product People.
• Continuous learning. Continuous learning is at our core. Embracing “Spread knowledge generously,” we foster growth through weekly Sharing and Rubber Ducky sessions, a dedicated #help channel, and promoting peer mentorship. These opportunities complement the structured mentoring from line managers and mission supervisors in the Product People Trio framework. We also offer a Learning Budget to expand your Product Management knowledge.

For more detailed information about our culture, ways of working, transparent salaries, and career track, please visit our Prospective Candidate FAQs. See Interview Guide for tips.

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Note that we assign a higher ranking to the questionnaire below than CVs.

Note that we assign a higher ranking to the questionnaire below than CVs.

Tagged as: a/b testing, Continuous Discovery, Mentorship, okrs, product management