Head of Product

Head of Product

The Restart Project is a registered charity and social enterprise that helps people transform their relationship with electronics. Electronic waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams. We are all consuming too fast, and we feel frustrated when products fail. We started as an all-volunteer organisation and volunteers still play a crucial role in supporting our team. We look at the big picture, on how to improve electronics for people and the planet, from design and manufacture all the way to end of life.

What we do

We’ve been very active in our first five years! We run and manage events, both for local communities and global movements; we created multiple online tools to help us manage and share information about our community’s social and environmental impacts; we design educational and promotional materials to help people gain control of the devices they own; we work with local authorities, nonprofits, and companies to improve their environmental impact; we lobby and raise awareness on grassroots and international levels; we even run our own radio show.

We consider all these activities as potential products: packageable, stand-alone, with their own identity and plans for expansion. We also imagine that some of these products can have new and diverse audiences — staff, volunteers, repairers, but also SMEs and companies, government institutions, international networks etc.

We are interested in generating mission-driven revenue with our products. This will always be in function of our mission and vision, and will align with our community-driven structure.

Roles and responsibilities

Until now, we’ve approached all our activities reactively — because there’s a clear, immediate need for us or the community, or to capture a great opportunity. We are ready to become more intentional about how we create, manage, and prioritise our work: this is where you come in.

The Restart Head of Product will:

  • Take stock of our current activities and develop a product roadmap: a strategy that prioritises and defines the time and resources spent on product development, and elaborates business models for key products
  • Take ownership of products – be the organisational focal point on how products relate to each other, the Restart mission, and team and community needs;
  • Develop new product ideas with the Core Team — assess ideas for feasibility and market potential, and introduce them into the roadmap;
  • Work in close contact with the Restart Tech and Data Lead on technical product development;
  • Collaborate with our Business Intelligence specialist to validate new ideas and constantly evaluate the performance of existing products;
  • Work in close contact with the rest of the team to understand their needs and priorities, and align them with the product roadmap.

Candidate description

This position will require taking over a big part of the responsibility for the success of Restart’s vision. For this reason, we are looking for people with proven experience.

If you’re a sector specialist looking for a change, frustrated by lack of meaning in your industry, you would have a healthy combination of the following:

  • 3 years experience managing and developing products, tech or non-tech sectors (ideally both), with clear examples of success/impact, in financial and/or social terms
  • Experience with products relevant to Restart’s areas of interest
  • Experience with environmental and social impacts of waste
  • Excited to work in a mission-driven social enterprise

If you’re thinking about shifting careers and starting fresh, we are happy to support your professional growth, through industry-standard courses or one-on-one mentoring from experts in the field. If you are working in account management, art direction and production, user research/UX, or agile project development, we think your skills could translate into our Head of Product role. This list of course isn’t exhaustive: we look forward to hearing about your diverse background.

We appreciate, but don’t put a premium on standard academic credentials or certifications: we much prefer to hear about your experience through examples that demonstrate a strong professional and cultural fit.

What can we offer?

As a charity our salary offer is modest, but we provide the chance to make a difference and to work in a fun, eclectic and creative atmosphere, where work can move quickly and not be hampered by bureaucracy. We also have an ample training budget to support our staff members. We are based in central London and provide flexible working arrangements,  such as flexible working hours and working remotely one day a week.

We are offering a fixed-term, one-year contract on either full-time basis or 80% basis, with a strong possibility of renewal. Compensation: £33,088 on a full-time basis, or pro-rata. Only people already eligible to work in the UK should apply.