Product Manager – Search Experience

Hi, I’m Nina

I lead a team of Product Managers at Keystone in our Stockholm office. I’m looking for a Product Manager to join my team and lead a vitally important area of our student experience, namely our search experience. It’s one of the most important hires that I will make in my team this year.

What we do

We are passionate believers in the power of education to transform people’s lives. We play our part by helping students to make one of the most important decisions of their lifetime, finding, applying, and enrolling in the right study program. Our multi-sided platform helps over 110 million unique prospective students every year to find their ideal match from over 5750 partner institutions on our global network of 460 student websites.

It’s a complicated, and diverse problem space and we work tirelessly to understand the needs of each individual student, and each individual institution, and use the power of technology to recommend the best matches for the benefit of both parties.

The role

Search is at the heart of our customer experience, and we want to be the number one matchmaker for students looking to find a higher ed program to fulfil their career dreams.

The role requires imagining and delivering what the future of search should be for students; it is a hard problem to solve at scale. Our search experience needs to help students find their most suitable match quickly and easily and help institutions to be as visible as possible. The person in this role needs to think about how we can continually understand more about both students and institutions, and how we can create incentives and rewards for those that help us to deliver a better customer experience for both parties.

The role will work every day alongside engineering, UX and other stakeholders to plan, execute, experiment, and iterate on an ongoing basis.

About you

This is a tough role for us to fill, and we’re looking for someone that has a rare combination of skills and experiences.

You’ll need to prove that you can operate in many settings… One moment you’ll be thinking big about the possibilities of search, and the next you’ll be iterating on a small enhancement. You need to be able to transition from a customer research call with a non-technical customer one minute, to working with Engineering leads about a complex indexing problem the next. You’ll need to understand how design and technology both enable and restricts our ability to scale, and how that impacts what we could, should, or shouldn’t offer to customers.

You’ll be comfortable working independently and focused on delivering a positive impact for customers. We are looking for a product manager that is equally comfortable at envisioning and strategizing the future of Search, and at rolling up their sleeves and digging into the data to define metrics, explore users’ interaction patterns and behaviours, and identify opportunities for maximum business impact.

Ideally, you’ll have 3-5 years of Product experience in a high-growth, high-scale, multi-team environment. If you have direct experience working on search or search-centred products, then you should speak with me.

What’s the catch?

If you’re wondering if there’s a catch, yes there is.

This is a hard problem to work on both technically, but also commercially. So much of our business is impacted by our search experience, and minor changes can have big impacts on students, and institutions… both positive and negative.

You will need to be able to be acutely aware of the commercial impacts of everything you do and work with an active stakeholder group on the changes you make. You will not be restricted or constrained in your plans, but you do need to be the most informed person in the room, deeply connected to the metrics that really matter, with a clear strategy based around doing the best for all our customers. Your stakeholders may not always agree with you initially, but they will trust you when you prove how deeply you understand the problem.

Responsibilities and what you will do

- Be the subject matter expert on search.
- Develop and drive the product vision and strategy for search and take full ownership of the product roadmap.
- Conduct research, and identify customer needs and challenges to discover trends and patterns in Search behaviour.
- Create and maintain clear, prioritized user stories and success criteria and collaborate with Engineering, UX, and other functions to execute at a velocity
- Participate in the technical design of the search, plan launches, and analyze technical metrics to access customer experience.
- Create ambitious OKRs to improve customer outcomes, and communicate progress toward goals with peers and stakeholders
- Collaborate with other product Managers to create a world-leading customer and search experience.
- Identify competitive and alternative offerings in the market. Develop strategies for being successful against the competition
- Assess existing technologies, competencies, and assets and determine how they can be used for the benefit of customers.

Experience & background

- Bachelor’s degree or higher
- 3-5 years experience in Product Management
- Excellent technical understanding and experience
- Strong quantitative analysis skills and a data-driven approach to problem-solving
- Solution-oriented, highly motivated, and proactive self-starter
- Positive can-do attitude toward tackling problems
- Awesome communication skills in English
- Strong commercial awareness, the ability to identify revenue growth opportunities, and ensure search fulfils business targets.

Preferred Qualifications

- Product or algorithmic experience with Search
- Machine learning background and understanding of search/ranking algorithms
- Experience from Edtech, an e-commerce or digital marketplace company

What we provide:

- An International and open working atmosphere with colleagues from many nationalities
- To be in the lead of a fast-growing company
- Plenty of space for initiative and the ability to grow your own skills and experience
- Awesome colleagues and a social working environment
- Hybrid working, but with a team that also enjoys meeting up IRL and having a Friday beer or Monday breakfast at the office found centrally in Stockholm.
- To be a part of a product team who cares deeply for our customers.

You will be surrounded by a talented, ambitious, and curious team who loves to listen, discuss ideas, and help in any way they can. We are a div...