NewsNow is a rare beast: a UK-based ‘dot com’ success story; a publisher and technology company running the extremely successful news aggregation platform NewsNow.co.uk.
Founded in 1997 to democratise and disrupt the market for news, NewsNow has built up a solid brand and huge user base. Our news product is driven by a unique hybrid of technology and editorial, unlike any other news outlet.
Our small & agile team, together with a focus on adtech and algorithms right on the cutting edge, has delivered a run of outstanding financial results and industry-leading success metrics.
Our large, loyal audience visit multiple times daily, excited by the potential to discover the latest and broadest range of content on the news issues of the moment, as well as the sports they love. We aim to inform, surprise, challenge and delight, 24/7.
Now in our 20th year, we’re in the fortunate position of having a proven product and the capital to invest in tackling some major growth plans, both here in the UK and abroad, and creating even more social capital out of what has been an extremely successful platform, through increased editorial direction, a focus on credible independent journalism, as well as through computational approaches to identifying the best news to show our users.
The Position
We’re now looking to appoint a Senior Product Manager who will be an integral part of the company’s management team, responsible for every aspect of our product’s growth & development along its course.
Working in close co-operation with our senior management and development teams, they will oversee, specify and drive forward front and back end development, and in particular, lead the shaping of a new format with a uniquely compelling editorial focus for NewsNow, in harmony with our business objectives and fit for the fake news age.
They will: be responsible for developing and keeping updated clear, concise and accurate product roadmaps and specifications of product development tasks and MVPs; own the prioritisation of product development work and, in close collaboration with the development team, project managing to ensure that timely change happens; be comfortable running highly collaborative iterative development cycles, using lean and agile techniques. (Our ‘one-click’ deployment mechanism and high traffic rate lets us release features rapidly to get qualitative and quantitative user feedback and adjust our plans accordingly.)
Key areas of focus will be:
- Overseeing the evolution of the website and integration of new content and features in a measured way, that fully appreciates the product’s USPs, so that in broadening the site’s appeal we do not alienate our massive existing audience.
- Leading the design and development of a new top-level section format, in what will also be the biggest redesign of our homepage in 20 years.
- Working with the leadership team to determine how to make the product attractive and relevant to new audiences, and in new markets.
- As well as the big projects, making time for developments to our ad tech, our analytics, internal tools, for SEO, and for bugfixes.
Requirements
This could be you if:
- you’re passionate about news and sports, and you’ve credible and extensive experience in news or other media and knowledgeable about our business model (programmatic advertising) and SEO (and ideally you will also have experience of leading a major product overhaul);
- you’re an excellent facilitator, with an open and collaborative approach to establishing the detail of desired developments and to change management, that will keep the entire team and user-base onboard;
- you’re highly organised, when it comes to keeping track of features in product roadmaps, and prioritising the work of the development team;
- you’ve high-level communication and interpersonal skills and exceptional attention to detail;
- you’ve a good eye for design, as well as a strong background in UX; and while you’re not expected to be a designer, you are expected to work with one and make great judgment calls yourself;
- you’re experienced in agile, lean, kanban and scrum and technically savvy, or at least fully able to engage with our technology.
As well as the day-to-day responsibilities, we are looking for someone who fully ‘gets’ the NewsNow product, position & ethos, who can maintain and develop our hard-fought reputation as one the UK’s most technologically-advanced and forward-thinking publishers, and will help us to evolve and enhance the culture of the business as we grow.