Product Manager

Job Description:

Here at Rakuten Kobo Inc., we offer a casual working start-up environment and a group of friendly and talented individuals. Our employees rank us highly in terms of commitment to work/life balance. We realize that for our people to be innovative, creative, and passionate, they need to feel valued and supported. We believe in rewarding all our employees with competitive salaries, performance-based annual bonuses, stock options, and training opportunities.

If you’re looking for a company that inspires passion, personal, and professional growth – join Kobo and come help us on our mission of making reading lives better.

The Role:

Our Product team is searching for an enthusiastic Product Manager who can help shape the way customers interact with our products and services. As the Product Manager, you will report to the Senior Product Manager, Reading Experience, and be a key contributor on the team. The ideal candidate has experience working on technical products, with experience in driving growth and retention, and is passionate about doing right by our customers. You are diligent, exhibit exceptional attention to detail, and are a strong communicator.

You will be part of a diverse and collaborative environment and a key point of contact for R&D teams taking products from idea to reality. Your day-to-day tasks include research, writing various product documentation, planning initiatives, defining product iterations, managing a product backlog & roadmap, and reporting and analyzing product performance for continuous improvements. If you’re driven, analytical, creative, organized, adaptable, performance-focused, and able to deliver high-quality work within a fast-paced environment, we want to hear from you. This role is in our Reading Experience team working on our Web Reader experience.

Key Responsibilities:

• Assume end-to-end responsibility for a product that is used by multiple devices and platforms.
• You must be proficient with the four core functions of product management:
• Understand the user, our business, and the broader market. This means working with our UX and research teams to identify user problems, determine how they impact business performance, and become the expert in the market space of digital reading and listening.
• Identify the right user problems to solve based on user and business impact.
• Deliver by working with design and software development teams to prioritize, plan, and launch various experiments & solutions to the problem.
• Analyze the data to understand how the product is working and then plan for what’s next.
• Define a vision and roadmap for the Web Reader, communicating it throughout the organization to gain alignment and prioritization. Engage various cross-functional groups to keep them involved and aligned through the progress.
• Review research, customer feedback channels, and product analytics, seeking problems to solve for users and opportunities to improve your product.

The Skillset:

Required:

• 4+ years experience working in a Product role, with experience in driving growth and retention for B2C products. Bonus if you have experience working with digital consumer products.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication to various audiences within the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to convey insights from complex analysis to non-technical business users at varying levels of familiarity.
• Technical experience and curiosity with the ability to demonstrate the importance and impact of technical work to non-technical audiences.
• A track record of identifying important user problems, executing on them with high impact to the users and organization.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills to deeply understand the space, the product’s performance, identifying opportunities and gaps.
• Experience working in an Agile software development environment.
• Curious and actively staying ahead of competitive landscapes and industry trends.
• Outstanding organizational skills, self-motivated, creative problem solver with a high attention to detail.
• Dedication to continual self-improvement and learning.
• A love of reading, obviously.

The Perks:

• Flexible hours and hybrid remote working environment.
• Subsidized in-office lunches.
• Full benefits starting from your first day.
• Paid Volunteer days, unlimited sick days, and 3% RRSP matching.
• Monthly commuting allowance for those who are hybrid.
• Lifestyle spending account.
• Talent and development training budget.
• Free Kobo device + free weekly e-book or audiobook.
• Weekly Kobo Tech University sessions.
• Maternity/paternity leave top up.
• Dog-friendly office.

About Rakuten Kobo Inc.
Owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten and headquartered in Toronto, Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the most advanced global ecommerce companies, with the world’s most innovative e-reading services offering more than 6 million eBooks and audiobooks to 30 million+ customers in 190 countries. Kobo delivers the best digital reading experience through creative innovation, award-winning e-readers, and top-ranking mobile apps. Kobo is a part of the Rakuten group of companies.
Rakuten Kobo Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially.

Rakuten Kobo would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role; however, only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.