Our Mission
UK schools spend well over £2bn per year on covering short-term absences with supply teachers. The current model is exclusively reliant on agencies that charge a massive commission and are terribly inefficient (everything is paper and phone-call-based). We are consolidating this analogue, fragmented, and inefficient marketplace onto a digital platform. Think Uber for supply teachers. In the process, we’re pulling hundreds of millions of waste out of the education system and making a huge positive impact on teachers and schools.
We are well-funded by high-profile investors, and are led by start-up veterans behind two of London’s most prominent tech companies.
Looking to make a difference?
You’ll be joining Zen in a key position. Product is at the heart of how we deliver for schools and teachers and you’ll play a key role in listening to our customers, setting strategy, building the right thing and building it right. We’re still young and you’ll play a significant role in the development of the company and have the opportunity for rapid career progression and learning.
The product delivery team is a crucial part of how Zen will help both transform the supply and recruitment experience for schools and generate the savings the education system needs. This is a great opportunity for someone looking to apply themselves for a great cause and with great responsibility and autonomy to shape the product for years to come.
We support flexible working arrangements — many of the product development team work remotely — while also recognising the value of face-to-face interactions with other teams particularly from such a central role as product manager.
What we are looking for
- Top performer that wants to be part of a high-performing, motivated team
- Growth mindset – dedicated to improving your skills as a professional
- Passion for building great products and companies that have a positive social impact
- Strong bias to action
- Excellent people skills for working with both our customers and teams at Zen
What you’ll be doing
- Shape the product roadmap for key projects through a deep understanding of our space, key problems, customer needs and robust processes to prioritise
- Run an agile delivery team with both design and engineering to deliver high-quality projects
- Conduct open-ended customer research with both teachers and schools to inform what we should build
- Run user tests with prototypes and the live service to find areas for improvement and refine designs
- Work with internal stakeholders to gather and define requirements
- Help solve complex business problems, bring people together and deliver user-friendly products that meet customer needs
- Define and report on key metrics for projects
- Communicate the product roadmap with the internal team and to our customers working with marketing
- Get your hands dirty. Like any true start-up, no two weeks will be the same and a general interest in ‘mucking in’ and just getting the job done is crucial
Ideal experience
- Prior experience leading product teams or building products or businesses
- Strong qualitative customer research skills
- Strong analytical and technical skills in data collection and analysis
- Knowledge of, or experience with, agile product delivery
- History of creating products with strong user experience and high-quality design
- Bonus points: personal design or coding experience
What’s in it for you?
- Work that you want to talk about
- Competitive salary
- Ownership in the company
- 25 days of holiday
- Summer hours with shorter days during holidays in August and an early Friday finish
- Convenient Central London office with perks like fresh fruit, yoga classes, bike parking, showers and an on-site gym and café
- Fun-loving, tight-knit team solving a problem that makes a difference
Diversity and inclusion
We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds, and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive atmosphere with a culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.
We value and respect all differences in all people (seen and unseen). We believe in an environment with equal access to career development opportunities and actively encourage applications from BAME candidates.
How to apply
Email a CV and short introduction for why you would be a great fit to jono@zeneducate.com before 31st August 2021.