Why this role
The Ken is a journalism organisation driven by a strong product mindset. We’ve grown through two driving forces — our editorial stories and our technology products. Our editorial side consists of talented reporters and journalists who write compelling stories. Our product side is responsible for figuring out how to leverage this to drive growth and add value to our subscribers.
The Product Manager is at the heart of this endeavour. Your role is to build compelling, world-class products that help us scale our business.
You’ll be tasked with building bold, ambitious products that’ll dramatically increase our subscriber base. In addition, you’ll also create experiences that’ll make existing subscribers love us. And you’ll do this by owning specific areas and flows on our website, mobile apps and back-end systems. You’ll also be responsible for the product roadmap, and create a strong foundation that’ll always keep The Ken on the cutting-edge of media companies globally.
We’re looking for someone with a desire to build world-class, impactful products at one of India’s fast-growing media companies. You’ll sit at the intersection of every team at The Ken and have the autonomy and responsibility to create solutions that’ll be used everyday by nearly half a million registered subscribers across India and Southeast Asia — which comprise founders, CXOs and executives at leading companies; and students at some of the most prestigious universities.
Who you are
You embrace bottom-up, first principles thinking — since we are pioneers, there are few replicable templates or strategies anywhere in the world that we can readily copy. The path to build a sustainable subscription media business is long and hard and you need to understand our core strengths and levers, operate within our constraints and deliver on goals. This requires deep, foundational thinking and understanding of product principles and the judgement to what is applicable and what isn’t.
You are self-driven and ambitious — the success of this role is driven by what the owner makes of it. The charter is limitless and there are few obstacles (except time and bandwidth). You’ll receive guidance and direction, but it’s your responsibility to figure out a path to outcomes.
You have an independent point of view and strong beliefs, but are open to it being challenged and proven wrong. If you rely on others to get convictions of your own, chances of success are low.
You are a purposeful and thoughtful communicator, being able to convince stakeholders and build consensus effectively. In an organisation filled with experienced and opinionated journalists, editors, and product folk, you’ll need this.
Lastly, you appreciate great writing and journalism because it helps you constantly evolve as a human being and a professional.
Your team
You’ll work closely with other Product Managers at The Ken, who will be your peers. All Product Managers have their core areas of responsibility, but these lines aren’t sharply defined and you’re expected to figure out and create ownership structures collaboratively.
This will also include giving and receiving feedback on product features, creating a roadmap, and execution and alignment. Over time, though, it will be up to you to decide and make a case for how the Product function at The Ken ought to grow.
It’s important to note that we take pride in hands-on execution across all levels, from founders to interns.
Other teams you will work with
The Product Manager will work cross-functionally with practically every team at The Ken. This includes editorial, marketing, engineering, design, corporate Sales and the leadership teams. Most teams will see you as the first point of contact for their feature requests, ideas or problems, and you’ll need to establish a strong rapport with them to meet your goals. Most of your products will require a buy-in and investment of time and effort from multiple teams, and you’re expected to figure out how to get this done.
You’ll report to the Chief Operating Officer, The Ken.
What a typical week may look like
The week will start with a product review meeting where you share progress and impact for the previous week and what milestones you intend to achieve in subsequent weeks. You may be required to do a deep-dive on things that didn’t work, and you’ll receive feedback. You’ll also get a sense of the organisational priorities so you can make informed product decisions.
You’ll also be expected to run a daily stand-up between the product and engineering teams where you’ll track execution. We follow an agile system of execution, and our sprint runs for two weeks. At the beginning of each sprint, in consultation with other PMs, you’ll set the priorities and create requirements for the engineering team.
Once a fortnight, you’ll setup and run a business review meeting where we’ll run through product and business metrics across the board and track progress against our goals.
In addition, you’ll have to set up a predictable cadence for generating and sharpening ideas with your team members and to solicit feedback from your manager and peers.
Once a quarter, you’ll have a performance review against your OKR progress, along with senior leadership, and you’ll receive both praise for progress and suggested tweaks for improvement.
Towards the end of the week, you might be preparing a brief session for the weekly All-Hands, talking about some upcoming product launch or drawing attention to the performance of a key feature.
What you are responsible for
The impact delivered by the Product Manager can be looked at across four broad areas:
- Outcome : Own the building and iteration of products that drive growth, engagement and retention for The Ken.
- Execution : Create a regular cadence that prioritises shipping high-quality, impactful features all the way from ideation to launch.
- Tracking : Deeply understand what’s working and what needs attention in order to meet your goals
- Communication : Constantly and proactively inform the rest of the organisation and influence stakeholders to make decisions on short-term and long-term bets.
Experience
You have at least 3+ years of experience as a Product Manager at innovative and dynamic organisations, preferably at a consumer internet start-up.
At The Ken, your role will be central to the organisation’s execution and success, and we only seek candidates who have prior first-hand experience as a Product Manager.
Skills
- Bias for action. It’s important to think and strategize. It’s even more important to do things, even when we don’t have enough time to analyse everything. We prioritise execution and work in short, quick turnaround cycles.
- Independent minded. Having strong points of view, which can be backed by intuition, observation and data, and the ability to communicate this persuasively.
- A feedback mentality, backed by the belief and practice of faster and better feedback loops in ideas, processes, and relationships
- Adaptability in the face of evolving goals and changing subscriber patterns. And tenacity and perseverance with respect to goals, metrics and plans.
- High standards of excellence, both at a personal and team level. Blended with leading-edge thinking, this creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and improvement for others too.
- Impeccable written communications that is both clear and powerful.
- High standards of excellence, both at a personal and team level. Blended with leading-edge thinking, this creates a virtuous cycle of innovation and improvement for others too.
What you’ll get
One of our tenets is to offer the most competitive salaries and meaningful benefits we can to our colleagues.
- Great salaries
- The latest Apple MacBooks
- A flat, non-hierarchical and open culture
- A universal ESOP plan
- Health insurance for you and your family
- Cutting-edge learning opportunities, whether it be on journalism or subscriptions products
- Unlimited leaves
- Company-sponsored therapy
