Product Manager

JOB PACKAGE

JOB BAND: D
CONTRACT TYPE: 12 month Fixed Term Contract (parental cover)
DEPARTMENT: Product Group
LOCATION:London, Glasgow, Newcastle or Salford– Hybrid 
PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £72,000 - £82,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

Personalisation is central to how the BBC helps each user find engaging content on every visit. This role focuses on building 'real-time' machine learning recommendation capabilities that respond to the moment: personal, contextually relevant, and adaptive to where users are and their behaviour. You’ll help ensure our products consistently feel fresh and valuable, so audiences can always discover something that matters to them across BBC iPlayer, Sounds, News, Sport and more. In doing so, you’ll further the BBC’s public mission by connecting people with trusted, distinctive content in ways that fit their lives.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM
You’ll join the Recommendations Group, bringing together product managers, engineers, data scientists, designers and editorial experts, all driven by the same goal: enabling highly personalised experiences that support the BBC’s public service mission. We care deeply about craft, curiosity and solving problems, and we partner closely with teams across the BBC to unlock the value of our unparallelled catalogue. Your work will touch millions of people and multiple products, balancing editorial judgement with AI/ML capabilities to create valuable experiences that align with our public service mission.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

• Define the strategy and roadmap for real-time recommendations as a capability, making prioritisation decisions that balance competing needs from users and the business.
• Gain a deep understanding of the data and opportunities, working with editorial and partner product teams to surface the best BBC content for the user across our experiences.
• Work with editorial, design, data and engineering colleagues to balance editorial judgement with AI/ML, creating valuable experiences.
• Define and set clear measures of success, focusing on engagement, retention and meaningful outcomes for users.
• Provide context and leadership to your cross-functional team so they can make great decisions, discover the right solutions and deliver at pace.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential criteria

• At least 18 months’ experience as a product manager in a multidisciplinary squad.
• Experience shaping strategy and making prioritisation calls for user-facing, data-driven products, informed by metrics, insight and experimentation.
• Skilled at delivering value at pace in complex environments, collaborating on details and making tough calls when needed.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to adapt style for different audiences and write clear, compelling product narratives.
• Experience applying machine learning techniques to shape users’ experience (e.g. in recommendations or search).

Desired but not required criteria

• Experience with offline evaluation and experimentation techniques.
• Hands-on expertise conducting user research.
• Proven success collaborating with content teams to balance judgement with data-driven approaches.
• Experience partnering with multiple teams to provide user value through platform capabilities or services.
• Background in organisations with a strong product culture.