Technical Product Manager
- Ably Uk
Job Description
Our everyday digital experiences are in the midst of a realtime revolution. Whether chatting alongside a livestreaming event, receiving realtime financial information, or working with colleagues in an online collaborative environment - consumers simply expect realtime digital experiences as standard. At Ably we’re not just witnessing this revolution, we’re powering it - at scale.
At the heart of our mission lies a commitment to putting developers first. Ably provides a suite of products to build, extend, and deliver powerful digital experiences in realtime, delivering billions of messages for millions of devices every day and supporting organizations like Harness, EA, Panasonic and HubSpot.
Working at Ably means helping to build the infrastructure and technology that will power and shape the future of the internet. The opportunity in front of us is immense. And we’d like your help.
About this role
As a Technical Product Manager at Ably, your role sits at the nexus of technology, customer needs and market opportunity. It is not a traditional product management position; we’re looking for someone who thinks like a developer and wants to build tools for developers like themselves. You’ll blend deep technical and architectural expertise with an ability to take new products to market successfully, and obsess about building a world-class developer experience.
You’ll become an expert in our market, our platform and most importantly, our users. You’ll own the strategy, roadmap and ultimate success of your product areas, turning complex problems into developer-centric solutions.
Day to day you will
- Lead a visionary product strategy. You’ll partner with our founders, senior management and engineering leadership to build and deliver a successful strategy for your product areas. You’ll own the lifecycle of key products and features from initial conception through to commercial strategy and go-to-market execution.
- Drive product adoption. You’ll work cross-functionally with Sales and Marketing teams to translate Ably’s technical capabilities into clear value propositions and successful launches. It’s about making sure products don’t just ship, but thrive in the market.
- Immerse yourself in the developer community. You’ll dedicate significant time to speaking directly with developers, building a deep knowledge base of customer feedback to help prioritise and inform your product roadmap.
- Guide engineering outcomes. You’ll operate as a peer to our tech leads, articulating clear problem statements and UX wireframes or API scaffolding where appropriate. You’ll help the team navigate technical trade-offs without compromising on quality.
- Elevate the developer experience. You’ll obsess about building end-to-end experiences that delight developers. Your goal is to design tools that are so intuitive and powerful they turn developers into advocates.
- Harness data and insights to fuel innovation. You’ll define and analyse product metrics, and feed learnings back into the development process.
We'd love to talk if you have
- Proven experience managing early-stage technical B2B SaaS or API-first products, with a track record of driving technical improvements and commercial outcomes.
- A background in software engineering and an understanding of modern web technologies and associated ecosystems. You must have the ability to write code in at least one modern language to build prototypes that use our APIs.
- Experience using developer tools. You should have a favorite text editor, be familiar with composing CLI tools, and be the first user of the products you’re shipping.
- A developer-first instinct and a natural empathy for your users. You understand API design, documentation and the things that differentiate the developer journey.
- Experience at a startup or growth-stage company or adaptability to thrive in a fast-paced, agile environment with a focus on rapid iteration.
It would be great (but not essential) if you have
- Experience building or managing Chat APIs or real-time messaging and communication platforms.
- Experience delivering solutions used by developers (developer tools or APIs), or closely related solutions for other technical personas (e.g. DevOps, cloud infrastructure etc.).
- An understanding of pub/sub and familiarity with distributed systems and event based architectures.
What’s it like to work at Ably?
We’re tackling planet-scale problems and our ambitions are a testament to that. You’ll join a successful, deeply motivated and collaborative team that thrives on innovation, experimentation and autonomy. To get a sense of life at Ably, visit our careers page. You can also read about the origins of Ably's core values on our blog.
We believe in fostering a culture that's built on inclusivity and mutual respect among all team members, and we recognise that each individual is different and will want to be supported in their role in different ways. We provide a range of perks and benefits to aid folks' development and wellbeing, allowing them to be their best selves and do great work.
- A remote-first and flexible work environment. UK-based teams come together in person once per month in our London hub (next to Old Street) and we get together as a company twice per year. Aside from that, you’re welcome to work wherever suits best for you.
- Equity. We’re a growing start-up and we want all team to members to share in the success of the company through our EMI share options programme.
- Enhanced holiday allowance. Our policy provides Ablyans with 28 days of paid annual leave (27 regular days, plus a day off to enjoy your birthday).
- Enhanced parental leave package, so that you can take the time you need to get to know your new family member, rest and recover.
- Home workstation budget of £500 on joining (and £150 p/a thereafter), so that your home office is set up to serve you well and that you have everything you need to work comfortably.
- Personal learning and development budget of £1000 annually, and 5% L&D time during working hours to focus on improving your skillset.
- Private healthcare with BUPA.
- Medical cash plan to cover a range medical and dental costs.
- Mental wellbeing coaching and counselling from Self Space.
- Monthly wellbeing budget via Juno.
- Life assurance and income protection.
- Access to Tech & Cycle to Work schemes.
- Weekly snack allowance for our end-of-week “Need To Know” meeting.
- A fully-paid one-month sabbatical after five years with Ably.
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Ably
We believe our differences as individuals is what makes us great. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we encourage everyone to be their most authentic self at Ably: we see inclusivity and openness as fundamental to creating long-term success as an organization. We encourage applications from all backgrounds regardless of age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, parental status, race, religion, educational background or neurodiversity. Ably has an amazing opportunity ahead of us, and we want anyone to be able to contribute to that opportunity.
If you enjoy working as part of a technology company, value open source, and love solving hard problems - then we’d love to hear from you, regardless of whether you fit the job description exactly or not. If in doubt, drop us an email; we’d be more than happy to give you some advice on your application.
