Senior Product Manager, Recommendations

JOB PACKAGE

JOB BAND: D
CONTRACT TYPE: 12 month Fixed Term Contract (parental cover)
DEPARTMENT: Product Group
LOCATION:London, Glasgow, Newcastle or Salford– Hybrid
PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £72,000 - £82,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The BBC’s recommendations platform powers millions of personalised suggestions every day across iPlayer, Sounds, News, Sport and more. The foundations are strong and the opportunity now is to accelerate teams’ innovation on and scaling of our recommendations systems, while ensuring production services remain reliable. By enabling colleagues to experiment at pace, you’ll help realise the BBC’s vision of a significantly more personalised experience for every audience.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

You’ll join the Recommendations Group at a pivotal moment, as the platform focus shifts from foundation-building to unlocking its full potential. Our teams bring together engineers, data scientists, product managers, designers and editorial experts, all working towards a shared goal: delivering trusted, relevant and distinctive content in ways that feel truly personal. You’ll be part of a collaborative, curious and mission-driven community, shaping shared technology that makes the BBC more valuable to millions every day.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

• Define the strategy and roadmap for areas of the recommendations platform, making clear prioritisation decisions that balance enabling multiple teams with operational stability.
• Partner with cross-functional teams using the platform to understand their needs, and translate them into platform features that deliver scaled impact.
• Define and measure success, focusing on how the platform accelerates innovation, improves time to market and unlocks adoption of valuable new approaches.
• Provide context and leadership so platform teams can make strong decisions and deliver the right solutions at pace.
• Build strong relationships with data providers and product teams to ensure the platform enables end-to-end value for audiences.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential criteria

• Established experience as a product manager in a multidisciplinary squad.
• Experience building enabling platforms for developer and/or data science users, with a focus on improving user experience and pace of value delivery.
• Proven ability to shape strategy and make prioritisation decisions for platform products, informed by product discovery.
• Skilled at leading teams to deliver at pace in complex environments, collaborating on details and making tough calls when needed.
• Strong communication skills, able to adapt style to different audiences and create clear, compelling narratives.

Desired criteria

• Knowledge of MLOps approaches and related tooling.
• Hands-on experience conducting user research.
• Experience building internal tooling-based products for technical users.
• Experience partnering with multiple teams in a large organisation to deliver shared services.
• Background in scaling ML products from prototype to production, ideally in a high-traffic environment.

INTERVIEW DATES

The process will have two stages. The first will explore your approach to product management and how your approach aligns with BBC values. The second will include a short written task completed in advance, followed by a discussion to explore your experience in more depth. Interviews will be held over Microsoft Teams, and we’ll make any adjustments you need to take part fully week commencing 6th October 2025.

Disclaimer

This is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

For any general queries, please contact: [email protected]

Redeployment

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.