Booking NL
Product Manager (For independent contractors)
We are looking for a PM to the Discovery Apps team in the Search domain. This role will help Booking win earlier in the trip journey by building mobile discovery experiences for travellers who start with broad intent, such as a theme, vibe, or set of constraints, rather than a fixed destination.
We have our first wins on the Web (enter “Tuscany” in our search box), and have ambition to start moving on apps. That brings its own challenges - smaller screen, different usage patterns, etc. On apps, this challenge is not only about adapting web patterns to a smaller screen. It is about designing faster, more contextual, and more continuous discovery journeys for mobile users, with strong support for saving, in-trip discovery, and progression from inspiration into trip planning.
The PM will be working closely and get direction from the seasoned Sr. PM who is driving the Web Discovery, so there is an opportunity for productive team work and cross-exchange of ideas.
What this PM will own
Mobile (apps) discovery experiences for broad and thematic travel intent
App-native destination exploration, including map-first experiences and destination comparison
Useful trip context and discovery content that helps customers narrow down with confidence
Save, shortlist, and handoff experiences that connect discovery to later planning and booking flows
Cross-functional product shaping with design, engineering, analytics, research, and adjacent platform teams
Key requirements for this role
At least 5 years of product experience in customer facing products
Proven experience building UX heavy mobile products
Proven experience working in ambiguous, early-stage 0-to-1 products
Strong experimentation and data fluency; able to define success metrics and evaluate product bets
Preferred: experience integrating LLM features into the product
Preferred: experience integrating with maps, AI chat
Key Responsibilities
Product Strategy
Owns and sets the vision for their product/feature, informed by data, user research and overarching vision of their product area
Lays out a 1y strategy to achieve the vision, as part of their Department's strategy and is able to align all their key stakeholders inc. their team on this strategy
Owns and defines objectives at Team-level
Typically owns or collaborates with a Product Marketing Manager to create a go-to-market plan for their product
Defines which broad-intent traveller problems and archetypes to prioritize first on apps, based on customer needs, market opportunity, and platform constraints
Product Delivery
Prioritises short- and mid-term (<1y) roadmap based on known strategy and objectives
Identifies risks and dependencies early and plans for mitigations
Works with the team to establish tactical delivery methodology (e.g. scrum, kanban, hours, points etc.) and execute plans
Data Fluency
Identifies and explains the choice of the primary metric, supporting metric and counter metrics
Understands what makes a solid hypothesis for experimentation
Understands statistical mechanics of experimentation, such as how to determine test power and sample size
Understands how to analyse data and present findings to stakeholders and make product decisions with the results
Defines (with analysts) best ways to present KPIs for tracking product success
Is able to define and validate success for early-stage discovery experiences where conversion is not always the most direct metric, using a combination of behavioural signals, qualitative feedback, and downstream indicators while keeping business metrics and guardrails in view
Customer Insight
Is familiar with techniques to better understand customer behaviour, such as interviews and surveys
Knows how to gather customer needs and pain points and has experimented with techniques such as story mapping or use case design
Understands the difference between different research methods and is familiar with the appropriate method for the problems they are solving for
Is familiar with research practises and principles and can use them in partnership with researchers to distil feedback into actionable hypotheses
Analyses and distils customer feedback from a variety of sources into actionable hypotheses, uncover unmet needs, validates or invalidates new concepts or improves existing products
Able to illustrate overall customer behaviour by blending multiple sources of product insights (such as surveys, field research, analytics, operations feedback etc)
Is familiar with user experience design practises and principles and can use them in partnership with designers to visualise a product problem to help guide their team's direction
Understands how travellers make destination decisions when they do not yet know exactly where or when they want to go
Stakeholder Management
Identifies other teams and key stakeholders impacted by the current project
Gathers stakeholders' key requirements and works with their manager to integrate the feedback
Represents the work of the team in a convincing and engaging way
Incorporates stakeholder requirements and feedback independently
Manages stakeholder expectations with timely, concise and clear progress updates, adapted to stakeholder needs and via different mediums (verbal, written, presentation)
Manages expectations up to Group Product Manager level and occasionally Director level
Tech Fluency
Partners with Engineering Manager
Understands which technical solutions are used to deliver the product
Advocates for the customer and business in engineering tradeoff decisions.
Actively learns the technical side of their work
Understands what the most critical elements of the technical solution are and can explain and justify the chosen technical solutions
Ensures a high-quality user experience with our products by showing technical awareness and understanding of risks.
Builds bridges between technical and non-technical stakeholders