Senior Product Manager - FTC

This position is fully remote/home based. Applications will be accepted from candidates based in the UK. This is a 12 month FTC.

PLOS is a nonprofit Open Access publisher with an ambitious mission: to help transform research communication so that science can be shared, understood and used more effectively. We'relooking for a Senior Product Manager to join our Product team for a 12-month maternity cover contract. It'san interesting time to join us.

Research publishing is changing rapidly. Researchers' expectations are changing. Technology is creating possibilities that didn't exist a few years ago. And at PLOS we'rerethinking some of the services, systems and assumptions that have shaped scholarly publishing for decades.

That means there are interesting product problems to solve - not just features to deliver.

You'lltake responsibility for a product area and work with designers,engineers and colleagues across PLOS to understand the problems that matter, work out where we can make the greatest difference and help the team learn its way towards good solutions.

Although this is a fixed-term role, itisn'ta caretaker role.

You'llbe joining active product teams working on significant problems and will have plenty of opportunity to shape what we do and how we do it.

We want our product teams to be curious, evidence-ledand comfortable with uncertainty.

Wedon'texpect a Product Manager to arrive with all the answers. We do expect them to ask good questions.

You'lluse continuous discovery alongside delivery: spending time with users, looking at data, understanding the wider service,identifyingassumptionsand finding practical ways to test them.

You'llhelp the team break large problems into smaller things we can learn from, rather than waiting until everything is known before we release something.

Andyou'llmake the team's thinking visible - explaining whatwe'retrying to achieve, whatwe'velearned, whatwe'reuncertain about and whywe'remaking the choices we are.

• Understand the problem. Build a deep understanding of our users, theirneedsand behaviours, as well as the organisational,operational and technical context surrounding them.

• Shape product direction. Work out where the greatest opportunities lie within your area and help translate PLOS'sobjectivesinto clear product outcomes and priorities.

• Practise continuous discovery. Work closely with design, engineering and others to explore problems,identifyassumptionsand regularly test ideas with users and through data.

• Turn uncertainty into learning. Frame hypotheses, design usefulexperimentsand look for the smallest sensible way to learn whetherwe'reheading in the right direction.

• Makegood product decisions. Weigh evidence, impact, effort,riskand opportunity when deciding what to pursue - and what not to pursue.

• Measure whether things are getting better. Define useful measures of success and use qualitative and quantitative evidence to understand whether our work is having the intended effect.

• Work iteratively. Help the team deliver in small steps, learn from what happens and adapt rather than treating plans as fixed commitments.

• Communicate your thinking. Clearly explain problems, evidence, choices,trade-offsand learning to people withvery different levels of technical and product knowledge.

• Create strong feedback loops. Use conversations, demos,reviews and other forums to get useful feedback early rather than presenting finished thinking late.

• Work as part of a team. Create the conditions in which designers, engineers and other specialists can contribute to product decisions rather than treating product management as something the PM does alone.

• Look beyond the product interface. Understand the wider service, including…