Product Manager - 12-month fixed-term contract
Salary £ 37,000 - 45,000
Location – Oxford, UK (flexible)
Vacancy listed 20/03/2025
Application deadline 14/04/2025
Details
The Micro:bit Educational Foundation is looking for a Product Manager to join our team and help us deliver on our not-for-profit’s mission: to inspire every child to create their best digital future. 

This is a 12-month fixed-term contract, with scope to transition to a permanent role.

Your work will support students, teachers and partners around the world in becoming confident and creative with digital technology.

Working with the Head of Product, you will manage a subset of the Foundation’s digital products, working to constantly innovate and improve them to better suit the needs of educators and children. 

Examples of the Foundation’s digital products include:

You will explore and prioritise new product features, balancing the needs of the Foundation, our audience and the effort/costs involved.

Requirements


  • A minimum of 2 years work managing digital products
  • Experience in user-centred design, including user research, user profile development, writing user stories and user experience design
  • Experience using analytics and insights to drive decision making and evidence impact
  • Familiarity with the education or learning sector
  • Experience integrating insight from multiple teams to drive product development

If you don’t feel you match these requirements but are interested in the role, please feel free to apply and explain in your covering letter the areas where you might need support or would like to develop your experience.

Responsibilities
We expect you to develop and maintain in-depth understanding of the following in relation to the products you manage:
  • The Foundation’s goals and strategy for the products, including how they help us meet our organisational objectives (linked to our Theory of Change)
  • The audience, including:
    • Bringing continuous audience insight from across the Foundation and externally into our product development process
    • Effectively incorporating user research (both qualitative and quantitative) to help steer product decisions
    • Translating user and academic research into features or additional product concepts to meet the needs of teachers and students using micro:bit
    • Supporting the team in deriving insights from analytics, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities and feedback via customer service
  • The wider context surrounding our products, including:
    • Perspectives and insights from other teams in the Foundation. Developing strong relationships across the Foundation will be critical
    • Learning from competitors, peers and the micro:bit ecosystem (including micro:bit accessories)
    • Influences from factors such as politics, privacy, safety, compliance, sustainability, and accessibility.

This will then enable you to:
  • Identify users’ expectations, barriers, pains, gains and unfulfilled needs. 
  • Shape the development of user types (profiles/personas) to communicate key segments within our audience
  • Write user stories to communicate product goals, features and communicate our understanding of the way our products are used. 
  • Champion quality user experience within our products.
  • Align stakeholders, external and internal, on the vision for the individual products and their roadmap.
  • Lead cross-functional alignment and collaboration on the product across the Foundation (including with tech, education and partnerships teams)

The Micro:bit Educational Foundation is committed to improving the diversity of our team. We actively seek and welcome applications from all sections of the community.


Recruitment schedule


Although we have a closing date of 14th April, we will be conducting interviews on an ongoing basis.

We monitor our performance on hiring diversity, using a questionnaire at the end of the application process. This is viewed by the operations team only, the aggregated data is shared with the wider team. The questionnaire is optional and you have the choice to not answer any question, but is hugely valuable for us to understand our performance in this area.

Please complete equal opportunities form here

Applicants must have the right to live and work in the UK.

How to apply


When applying for this role please upload
  • a covering letter
  • a CV. 

As this is a hybrid role, please note in your covering letter if working in Oxford 1-2 days per week on average is possible for you, and that you have the right to work in the UK.
Benefits

This is a hybrid role. We believe there is value in face-to-face collaboration for design discussions and mentoring. This position is based at our central Oxford office, however a significant amount of flexible working is possible. We expect this role to be in the office typically 2 days per week. The Micro:bit Educational Foundation is a flexible employer and we love to support our team to work around other commitments in their lives. Please get in touch if you’re interested in this role but you require different working arrangements. For example, other members of the team work 4-days per week.

Once probationary period is complete, contractual benefits include; group private medical and group life insurance plan, EAP plan, flexibility in working hours, flexible annual leave policy (taking at least 20 days a year not including national holidays) and pension arrangement.

The Micro:bit Educational Foundation is a UK-based not for profit with the goal to inspire every child to create their best digital future. https://microbit.org/about/

One of the greatest benefits of working at micro:bit is knowing that the work you're doing is contributing to something positive, constructive and with beneficial social outcomes. The Micro:bit Educational Foundation offers the opportunity to include outreach activities in your work, such as teaching with the micro:bit at code clubs.

We are a small organisation with a large audience and reach. We thrive on creative problem solving and are open to new ideas and solutions. This gives each individual the chance to have enormous impact, as well as ensuring that your days will be diverse and the challenges complex.
Contractual benefits include flexibility in working hours, unlimited annual leave once probationary period is complete and a competitive pension arrangement.

This is a full time role but we would also consider candidates working 4 days a week on a pro-rata basis.

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When applying for this role please upload
- a covering letter
- a CV.

As this is a hybrid role, please note in your covering letter if working in Oxford 1-2 days per week on average is possible for you, and that you have the right to work in the UK.

apply