Head of Product

Location: London (Oval),

Type: Full-time- Hybrid

Salary: Competitive

About us:

Zen is revolutionising education. Schools spend over £2bn a year on agency staff, and £600m of that goes straight into the pockets of recruitment agencies. That’s why we’ve built an alternative. 

Our online platform gives schools instant access to hundreds of profiles of fully vetted teachers and support staff. Since launching in 2017, we’ve saved schools over £30m – money that goes straight back into school budgets and increases teachers’ pay.

The opportunity:

This is your chance to join a tech startup in hypergrowth. We’re passionate about professional development, and we’ll work to maximise your personal and career growth.

Looking to make a difference?

You’ll be joining Zen in a key position. Product is at the heart of how we deliver for schools and teachers, and you’ll play a key role in listening to our customers, setting strategy, building the right thing and building it right. 

As Head of Product, you’ll be responsible for owning our US and SaaS product strategy and roadmap, a key area of our growth. You’ll also support our Product Leaders in instilling Zen product principles in the wider business and look to influence people outside of your direct team. You’ll act as a coach to other teams and PMs to help ensure they follow best practices and deliver against our mission.

We’re still young and you’ll play a significant role in the development of the company and have the opportunity for rapid career progression and learning. This is a great opportunity for someone looking to apply themselves for a great cause and with great responsibility and autonomy to shape the product for years to come.

What we are looking for:

- Someone with a clear playbook for prioritising work, helping the team understand the impact and making a roadmap for everyone to follow

- A top performer that wants to be part of a high-performing, motivated team

- Growth mindset dedicated to improving your skills as a professional 

- Passion for building great products and companies that have a positive social impact 

- Strong bias to action

- Excellent people skills for working with both our customers and teams at Zen

- London based

What you’ll be doing:

- Planning the overall product roadmap across teams

- Point person for the delivery of the US and SaaS product roadmap through a deep understanding of our space, key problems, customer needs and robust processes to prioritise

- Manage and develop our high-performing product delivery team through effective collaboration between product managers, design and development

- Run an agile delivery team with both design and engineering to deliver high-quality projects

- Conduct customer research with both teachers and schools to inform what we should build, and be confident in running user tests to find areas for improvement

- You’ll clearly define success and evaluate progress with both qualitative and quantitative methods

- Work with internal stakeholders to gather and define business priorities against customers' jobs to be done

- Help solve complex business problems, bring people together and deliver user-friendly products that meet customer needs

- Define and report on key metrics for your product team

- Communicate the product roadmap with the internal team and to our customers working with marketing

- Get your hands dirty. Like any true start-up, no two weeks will be the same and a general interest in ‘mucking in’ and just getting the job done is crucial

- Report to CPTO

Ideal experience:

- At least 8 years experience building products or businesses

- At least 2 years experience leading highly effective teams of 5 or more team members

- Strong qualitative customer research skills

- Strong analytical and technical skills in data collection and analysis

- Knowledge of, or experience with, agile product delivery

- History of creating products with strong user experience and high-quality design

- Bonus points: personal design or coding experience and MBA or equivalent level qualifications

What's in it for you?

- Work that you want to talk about

- Competitive salary

- Ownership in the company

- 25 days of holiday

- Central London office with perks like fresh fruit, yoga classes, bike parking, showers and an on-site gym and café

- Fun-loving, tight-knit team solving a problem that makes a difference

- 1-1 Coaching

- Life Insurance

- Health Insurance

- Electric Car Scheme 

- Cycle to Work Scheme 

Diversity and Inclusion

At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued, and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive, and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all. 

We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work. 

We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team.