Product Development Manager

Job Description

Product Development Manager

Engineering

[£100,000-115,000 + Share Options]

Prolific

Prolific is not just another player in the AI space – we are the architects of the human data infrastructure that's reshaping the landscape of AI development. In a world where foundational AI technologies are increasingly commoditized, it's the quality and diversity of human-generated data that truly differentiates products and models.

The Role

At Prolific we have a united product development group with Engineering, Data, Product, Design and Research all working closely. Within the product development group, we have cross-functional teams that are centred on product areas with an associated mission. The teams have the autonomy to self-organise towards the best possible outcomes. We optimise for fast flow of work and search for continual improvement every day. We understand the importance of good product development and engineering practices, so we place collaboration, communities, and personal improvement at the heart of our culture.

What you'll be doing

• Leading one or more of our product development teams, performing platform scoping/prioritisation/backlog management functions, technical oversight and delivery management
• Taking accountability for both the delivery and quality of the team’s output to agreed timelines and high-quality standards
• A strong customer focus, making data driven decisions to guide the team to the highest impact outcomes for our customers
• Manage, coach, and mentor team members to nurture their growth with the goal of developing the group into a high-performing team
• Where necessary, you will effectively manage the performance of underperforming team members to ensure that the overall team unit remains strong and high-performing
• Working closely with your technical leads, you will ensure that the technical solutions, architectures and designs of your teams align with the overarching company technology and product strategy
• With a You Build It, You Run It mindset, you will champion and contribute to our collaborative DevOps culture, optimising your team for fast flow
• Understand the architecture, codebase and services your teams works with, actively engage in technical workshops and facilitate technical decisions that reduce complexity without introducing undue technical debt
• Take a hands-on approach to leading the team in analysing the operations of the platform/products through looking at logs, APM tools and code, and building a backlog of changes to reduce errors and enhance stability, reliability, resilience, performance, scalability and security
• Oversee the support of code developed by the team and deployed to production
• Champion our principles, ensure our communities of practice are well established, and contribute to the improvement of our product development culture
• In support of our growth, you will lead the hiring, on-boarding and training of new team members
• You will be looking for opportunities to experiment with better ways of working, understanding where the current constraints are to delivery, and how incremental improvements in ways of working could help, but are not afraid to make radical changes based on proven best practice where necessary

What you’ll bring to the role

• A strong technical background which informs how you help the teams solve problems
• You must be comfortable wearing the hats of a delivery manager and product manager for your team—that is, being accountable for prioritizing, phasing, experimenting, and understanding customer needs, and delivering these to agreed timelines
• You have a deep understanding of both monolithic and distributed web applications and the surrounding stacks, and you have experience building and supporting public cloud apps
• A passion for developing others and experience in managing, motivating, coaching and mentoring others
• Previous experience of working in an environment with strong product development practices and the ability to demonstrate how you have improved the culture
• You care about the product life cycle and are customer value focused
• Ability to demonstrate the use of continuous, iterative improvement and a culture of feedback to drive change in your team and across the wider organisation
• A passion for software product development, and an appetite for learning and self-improvement
• You have previously been hands-on technically and are fluent in communicating technical solutions and their feasibility to non-technical stakeholders

Why Prolific is a great place to work

We've built a unique platform that connects researchers and companies with a global pool of participants, enabling the collection of high-quality, ethically sourced human behavioral data and feedback. This data is the cornerstone of developing more accurate, nuanced, and aligned AI systems.

We believe that the next leap in AI capabilities won't come solely from scaling existing models, but from integrating diverse human perspectives and behaviors into AI development. By providing this crucial human data infrastructure, Prolific is positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of AI innovation – one that reflects the breath and the best of humanity.

Working for us will place you at the forefront of AI innovation, providing access to our unique human data platform and opportunities for groundbreaking research. Join us to enjoy a competitive salary, benefits, and remote working within our impactful, mission-driven culture.

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