Position: Product Manager
Duty location: Remote or in Prague, Czech Republic
Starting date: ASAP
Contract length: one year with the possibility of extension
Line Manager: Head of Digital Unit
About People in Need:
People in Need is one of the largest non-profit organizations in Central and Eastern Europe active in humanitarian and development aid, human rights and social inclusion. In 2022, more than 2000 employees worked in our Humanitarian and Development Aid Section in 25 countries (Asia, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe).
Description:
We are looking for a Product Manager who is passionate about creating meaningful digital products and who is committed to helping advance the mission of People In Need.
The Product Manager role at PIN will be a pivotal position driving the development and successful roll-out of transformative digital products, including mobile and web apps. The Product Manager will be responsible for one larger or multiple smaller products at the same time. Some of the biggest products that we are currently building and that you may contribute to are Early Warning System, a system enhancing the disaster resilience of vulnerable populations across Cambodia and Laos, Water Report, a water infrastructure monitoring application in Ethiopia, Mama Info, an educational service for pregnant or lactating women in Zambia, EMA, a software solution for education monitoring within countries of the Middle East and Africa, Humansis, a platform for delivering humanitarian aid, benefiting hundreds of thousands in Syria, Zambia and Ukraine, a newly proposed document scanning application, and other digital products.
This remote role, with the option to work from the Prague office and potential travel to the country programs, bridges the gap between global issue-focused initiatives and startup-style innovation. The Product Manager will lead all aspects of the product lifecycle, from strategic planning and design to implementation and release. The Product Manager will collaborate extensively with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and external vendors to ensure the product's technical usability, user acceptability, and domain suitability. The responsibilities of this role encompass everything from crafting a compelling product vision, strategy, and roadmap to conducting user research, coordinating vendor relationships, overseeing quality assurance, and managing the projects budget. The Product Managerโs expertise in agile methodologies, stakeholder management, and product development will be pivotal in delivering high-quality, user-centric solutions that align with PINโs objectives and global impact goals.
Responsibilities:
Product Strategy
- Responsible for defining the product strategy, including unique value proposition, business model and pricing, where relevant, while balancing PINโs priorities and objectives.
- Responsible for the development and management of a product roadmap.
- Manages stakeholder expectations and ensures alignment with product vision and roadmap across the organization to keep everyone coordinated and prevent organizational silos.
- Represents the product to PIN, PIN network and beyond: shares functionality in demos and deep dives to interested parties.
- Assists in fundraising activities, including proposal writing or/and supports project sponsor in securing funding for the product.
Product Discovery
- Ensures that users are at the center of our design and development process, establishing processes for continuous feedback and engagement loops.
- Directs and oversees product research, including user research, market analysis and competitor analysis, exploring the problem/solution space, and synthesizing findings to make data-driven decisions.
Product Delivery
- Accountable for the successful delivery of the product by the product team, ensuring that product increments are delivered on time, within budget, and meet quality standards.
- Accountable for maintaining and prioritizing product backlog according to product roadmap.
- Accountable for scoping backlog items, including the development of user stories and wireframing where needed.
- Accountable for vendor procurement, contracting and day-to-day management (including communicating requirements to the development team if relevant) to ensure we are getting the most value out of our contracts and development cycles.
- Designs the roll-out and scale up strategy and coordinates the implementation of the product to new customers, including its presentation, training, configuration, development of related processes and successful launch measured by product & feature adoption and other relevant metrics.
- Accountable for user acceptance tests, user trainings, and technical support for users.
- Accountable for maintaining clear and comprehensive technical documentation, user guides and release notes.
- Stays up to date with PINโs procurement, security, compliance, data protection, legal and financial policies.
- Provides support during product audits.
Resource Management
- Identifies the necessary resources (personnel, technology and tools, data and information, financial resources) for the project.
- Optimizes resource allocation to meet project timelines and budget constraints.
- Coordinates on resource matters with the finance team.
Skills & Requirements:
- 2+ years of experience in Product Management
- Strong organizational skills including attention to detail
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with stakeholders, users and team members of different cultural backgrounds
- Experience with negotiation with and managing expectations of stakeholders at senior level
- Experience in Agile development methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban
- Knowledge of design tools such as Jira and Confluence
- Experience working in distributed teams across time zones
- Experience working on early-stage products is a plus
- Passion for learning and keeping up-to-date with emerging trends in product management within the NGO sector
Fluency in English is a must, Czech language is an advantage
PIN Offers:
- 25 days of paid leave annually; 3 sick days
- Laptop for work (also for personal use)
- PIN covers costs related to travelling abroad such as flights, accommodation, medical check-ups, vaccinations, travel insurance etc.
- Reimbursement of costs of visas and vaccinations; assistance with visa application procedure;
- Free medical helpdesk and psychological consultation available online; travel health insurance;
- Relatively flexible working hours
- Access to internal e-learning and webinars
- Language courses
- International online induction for all the new staff (HQ + country programmes of RDD)
- Diverse work with an international dimension that makes sense and has visible results
- Work with inspiring people, in a pleasant environment of the largest Czech non-profit organization in the center of Prague
- An open and informal organizational culture without a dress code, where we all relate
- Opportunity to participate in interesting events that we organize
- Extensive Capacity Building program โ internal and external - Induction training, internal e-learnings, Knowledge and Learning Department onboarding, eventual HEAT Training, Humentum trainings (www.humentum.org ), PuntoSud trainings (https://academy.puntosud.org/courses)
- Personal and professional development