Vice President of Product Management

Job Description

VP Product Management

Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is growing and transforming! We are hiring a VP Product Management to lead and grow a team of consumer Product Management professionals. We’re transforming from a classic org structure to a tribe-squad style model with an outcome driven roadmap and autonomous teams. Your tribe will comprise a set of consumer-centric squads. You’ll help us drive up the pace of experimentation and innovation across many aspects of the Rakuten consumer experience – across mobile apps, browser extensions, websites, and more. Members love the Rakuten Cash Back experience (80+ NPS score!). Today consumers shop at 3,500+ stores online, in-store and restaurants at over 30,000 locations, and book travel online through Rakuten’s affiliate relationships. You’ll drive the team to experiment across many expansion opportunities designed to get members more cash back, feel more rewarded, and drive value for our merchant partners.

The big picture: You will own a number of end-end experiences. You’ll coach your teams to work cross-functionally with product design and engineering to focus on outcome-driven development. You’ll partner with business leaders in the company to align objectives, ensure your team’s OKRs are aligned with the organization. You’ll work to encourage active product discovery to test innovative ideas. You will be able to disrupt the status quo through original thinking and pioneering action. You will have exceptional vision and technical knowledge, and you’ll ground your work in real-world data, research and analytics.

Your day-to-day:

• You’ll lead Product Management for a 5 squad tribe. Ensure teams are working toward delivering their KRs.
• Strategy & product tactics. Develop and get buy-in to Tribe level OKRs. Ensure squads are balancing their efforts across product discovery/innovation & testing new features and sustaining results with existing functionality.
• Operational management. Monitor tribe-level OKR performance; developing and maintaining squad level OKRs with your team. Help build/manage cross-team processes and regularly refine as needed. Regularly report on KR performance across product and exec teams.
• Develop demonstrated deep customer understanding focusing on the key personas and use cases associated with your core area and beyond. Develop and share analyses.
• Demonstrate deep business understanding; how the model works & how components fit together. Ensure team takes this into account in prioritization and decision-making processes.
• Be the go-to resource for industry/competitive analysis for your core area. Maintain competitive analysis on key players. Be conversant around key and emerging trends, particularly as they apply to product but going beyond as well.
• Passion & motivation. Embody the core Rakuten Rewards culture: Design for people; Dare to ask what if; Make success happen; We before me; Do it with heart
• Build and maintain cross functional partnerships across teams including Product Design, Engineering, Delivery Management, Merchandising, Sales, Member Services, etc.
• Mentor and coach your team; identify skill gaps and work to address them – and work to help team members grow.

Requirements:

• Minimum 10 years' experience in product management leadership— including mobile/tablet apps, websites and immersive experiences — with a professional degree in technology or business.
• Experience with high-level product strategy
• Experience leading product team for a consumer software business leading teams (cross functionally) of 50+ people.
• Effective communication skills
• Deep understanding and appreciation of mobile application ecosystems and technologies, web ecosystem and technologies
• End-to-end experience managing the product life cycle with a proven track record of successfully launching new products and services.
• Extensive and broad knowledge of the industry, trends, and relevant external forces in eCommerce, Loyalty Marketing or related businesses.
• Demonstrated ability to plan, organize, and execute strategic initiatives to advance and drive the product direction and vision.
• Thorough understanding of agile development methodologies.
• Demonstrated experience attracting, managing, developing, coaching, evaluating, and retaining staff. Ability to lead, influence, and motivate individuals and teams.
• Skilled in holding people accountable, establishing high standards of excellence, and stretching their abilities to perform their best work.

Why Rakuten Rewards?

Rakuten Rewards (formerly Ebates), offers a fast-paced and friendly environment where creativity, teamwork and results are rewarded. We build products with extremely high customer satisfaction and net promoter scores which has driven our successful growth in membership, advertisers, revenue, and profit. Our headquarters is a modern campus in San Mateo, California (near Caltrain) with 12 offices worldwide. Our group of companies includes the Ebates cash back brand as well as ShopStyle and Cartera Commerce. We have best of both worlds - a large profitable multi-national company with the rapid growth and agility of a startup!

Our core business was founded in 1998, and we have helped our members – 12 million and counting – earn over $1.4 Billion in cash back shopping at their favorite stores. We are the largest free cash back loyalty program in the United States. Rakuten is the official shopping rewards partner of the Golden State Warriors!