What’s it all about?
Did you know that the printing industry is one of the biggest industries on the planet? Nevertheless, it faces a lot of challenges when it comes to collaboration and process digitisation. We are Zaikio and we’re currently building a sophisticated software platform for this industry to solve the problem. Our vision is to create a place where all print related processes world-wide run on a centralised industry platform. From designers and publishers to printers and machines to trucks and logistics – it’s truly holistic.
We design and build the foundation services for this platform, as well as documentation and developer resources. Our responsibilities include process design, product design, UI/UX, implementation and operations as well as marketing and general strategy.
All of this is backed by Heidelberg Druckmaschinen AG, the biggest print equipment manufacturer in the world, with more than 100 years of history. Heidelberg has acquired us (called Crispy Mountain back then), in order to combine the excitement of a young and agile team with the knowledge and tradition of one of the oldest brands in print. Together we will tackle the incredibly exciting mission ahead.
What will you be doing?
As a product manager of our SaaS apps and services, you will be the bridge between our managing directors Christian and Matthias and our development and UX team. Our biggest challenge as a small strong team is that information is made fully available to everyone and that everyone has the same vision of our products. Christian and Matthias, also founders and developers, have this product vision and, as Head of Development and Head of UX, oversee the development of the products very closely. Nevertheless, other activities are taking up more and more of their time, so we would like to hand this role over to a new employee.
In your role you will make sure that everyone in the team knows what the next steps are at any given time. You will plan the next epics and sprints (no, we don’t use Scrum, but the terms are nice) together with the dev team and think about how we can further develop our products to make our customers happy.
What does it depend on?
We will need to talk and document a lot. So Slack, WhereBy, Basecamp and Github are the main tools you’ll be working with. We are big fans of self-organised teams and direct communication. This is more important to us than following too rigidly certain processes like Scrum. However, we are open to all ideas. It is important to us that there is a strong product understanding for this role. This role is therefore less about project management and more about product development and management of a SaaS business. Ideally, you have already proven this role in other teams and start-ups and know how important a good product vision is and know when things need to be prioritised and which things can be ignored for the time being. Because in the end, things have to be shipped.
We are looking for someone with very strong communication skills and empathy. You should be capable of empowering and supporting each individual in the team, in order to help them reach their full potential. Transparency and honesty are values that we consider essential and will be needed for you to bring forward an organised vision of the path towards our company goals.
How do we manage ourselves?
We highly believe in self-organized teams. Usually a team consists of 1 to 4 UX designers, developers and product managers. To get things done, we work in monthly sprints, with the ultimate goal to ship something in the end. This can be a feature, a product or just a part of it.
What we have to offer
✌️ Bullshit-free zone
Our challenge is a big one: we are tasked with building a platform that will change the face of an entire industry. Forever. We don’t solve Silicon Valley-style self-made, first-world problems – we want to fix actual software problems in the printing industry, freeing the people working there from stupid, repetitive, cognitive assembly line work and allow them to rediscover their creativity.
💰 Above-average salary
We pay above-average salaries that are linked to your experience and responsibility and grow with you. All based on a simple and fair level-based salary model.
❤️ Family First
We’re trying hard to provide you with a healthy and family friendly environment. Results matter, not office hours. That’s why we encourage remote work and quality time that you can spend with your loved ones.
👩🚀 Freedom and Opportunities
You will enjoy a great deal of freedom in your work (which can also be a burden). Not gonna lie, we are a small team at this point, which will grow over time (again not explosively, but sustainably), so at first your job will be hands-on, while in the future it can shift more towards project lead and management (if this is your desire). Either way, your work will have an impact on our success!
How to apply
Apply below and tell us a bit about yourself and the work you’ve done so far. We also expect you to get familiar with our philosophy and tell us how you can enrich our team.
Please give us some time to review your application, we’ll definitely come back to you as soon as possible. After our initial review, we might conduct a short phone interview to get to know you better. Following that, a personal meeting or online conference will be the next step, where we talk about code and product development.
We at Zaikio highly value equality and diversity, thus strongly encourage women and underrepresented minorities to apply for this position. The only constraint at this moment is, that we we need to focus on applicants that already live and work in Germany.
Now it’s your turn! We look forward hearing from you!