Product Manager
About Zappar
We are Zappar, the world’s leading Augmented Reality platform and creative studio. It’s our mission to democratize AR & MR.
During our decade in the industry, our Creative Studio team has built over a thousand AR experiences in partnership with some of the world’s biggest brands. Our team has been pioneers in showcasing how AR technology can transform packaging, illuminate events and elevate marketing campaigns with innovative, engaging content.
Our Augmented reality development toolkit, ZapWorks, puts the power of AR in the hands of designers and developers. Targeting a wide range of business customers, from Learning & Development teams at Fortune 500 companies, to some of the most innovative AR creative agencies across the world, our platform and suite of creative tools enables customers of all levels of technical and design abilities to push the boundaries of interactive creativity.
We are also the proud creators of ZapBox, the first affordable, mixed reality kit that allows developers and businesses to reimagine how they design, build and create 3D experiences.
What will you be doing?
To help us to continue to deliver on our mission of democratising augmented reality, we are scaling up our technology team, enabling us to continue to develop our products, build new ones, and increase the amount and quality of work that we produce.
Over the past few years our team has been working on a number of successful product initiatives, from the game-changing transition from native apps to WebAR, the launch of our Universal AR SDKs, our ‘ZapWorks for Enterprise’ offering and many more features and improvements in between.
Our product set includes:
- ZapWorks creative tools: ZapWorks Studio and ZapWorks Designer,
- The Universal AR SDKs: ThreeJs, Unity, ReactThreeJS, A-Frame,
- Our websites: Zappar.com, zap.works, ZapBox, and Documentation,
- The ZapWorks CMS and features we expose (Analytics, SAML SSO etc)
- Distribution / Publishing products (WebAR and Native apps)
And lots more!
As a Product Manager, you will be responsible for one of our newly formed squads working across the products listed above, reporting to our Head of Product. Day to day, you will be working closely with a cross functional team of designers, engineers and analysts to achieve outcomes that help our customers meet their goals with the ZapWorks toolkit.
More broadly, you will work closely with a product leadership team to determine which business objectives your squad will work on, and will be accountable for a set of metrics that help us achieve our ambitious goals.
Skills we are looking for:
We are looking for someone to join the team that is smart, inquisitive, ambitious, collaborative and humble. The right person will have a desire to help Zappar build upon the great work that has gone before, whilst contributing a fresh perspective based on their previous professional experience.
You will be a positive influence across the business, demonstrating your ability to get stuff done within the organisation. You are also a strategic thinker with the confidence in your own abilities (and research) to pursue the outcome you believe is right.
Some of the attributes we would like you to be able to demonstrate in your application are:
- Product sense. An appreciation for good products, particularly digital products and service design, and an understanding of why things work the way that they do.
- Communication skills. You are able to communicate effectively across all levels of the organisation. This could be training sales to understand a new feature that you have built, or being upfront with senior stakeholders to let them know their desired project is not going to be delivered this quarter.
- Commercial understanding. The role of the product team is to build software that adds value for customers, which in turn leads to revenue for the company. You should be able to make prioritisation decisions based on what is most likely to increase sales over the long term.
- Data-informed decision making. You will know how to use data to help you come to a conclusion, rather than using data to justify your existing opinion. This could be through quantitative data analysis, or qualitative through speaking to customers / user research.
- Problem solving. You are someone that enjoys solving complex problems. You are comfortable dealing with different stages of ambiguity to arrive at the best answer. There is no blueprint for what we are trying to achieve, so your role is to help write one.
- Leadership. As a product manager you are going to be working with a team of various specialists to achieve a common goal. As the generalist in the group, you must work to inspire confidence that you are the right person to lead them.
- Project management. While we value outcomes over outputs at Zappar, we understand that shipping features on time requires effective project management skills. You can demonstrate your ability to take ownership, make the tough decisions on what is built and what is not, and deliver what you say you will.
Nice to have:
We understand that product managers come from various backgrounds, and that diversity of thought and experience is what makes them so important in adding value to the software development process.
You won’t be penalised for not having experience in these so don’t let them put you off applying.
- Augmented Reality / 3D design. The products we create enable our customers to build AR experience for the web and native apps. If you have any background working with either AR/VR products and engines or 3D models then that will give you a head start in empathising with our customer’s needs. You might also simply be passionate about immersive technology.
- Software engineering. A good amount of your time will be working with our talented software engineering team. If you have a background in programming then we believe that will be helpful for your communication with them. You won’t be expected to do any coding yourself though.
Other than the exciting work, any other pluses to working at Zappar?
While our Zappar family has got a lovely (dog-friendly!) office in beautiful, leafy Chiswick complete with shower facilities, bike storage and surrounded by some amazing shops, restaurants and pubs, we run a ‘work where you work best’ policy (UK only) so you can work remotely if you wish. We operate flexible start and finish times to make life a bit easier for anyone who wants to spend time with their children, join an exercise class etc.
For those in the office, we have Friday drinks, weekly all-hands meetings and we have a quarterly town hall where we all get together for updates on the company performance. Our socials have included tours of the Sipsmith’s distillery and a team scavenger hunt across London.
We are committed to making a difference not only in democratising AR but also being at the forefront of businesses in our sector taking our role in sustainability seriously which is why we are proud to partner with The Eden Reforestation Project and commit $0.10c for every ZapWorks plan and ZapBox purchase along with 2% of our AWS serving and hosting fee on a quarterly basis to plant trees and help people out of poverty through sustainable job security.
We truly are at the cutting edge of AR and have been recognized as one of Fast Company’s ‘World’s Most Innovative Companies’.
We actively encourage underrepresented applicants: if you need any assistance or additional information with applying, please contact Shaun McInally-Buckley (Head of People).