Director of Product Management

About Auror

At Auror, we’re empowering the retail industry to tackle theft and Organised Retail Crime, a $150 Billion problem globally. It’s high volume crime that’s increasingly organised in nature and is putting people, retailers, and communities at risk every day.

Founded in New Zealand 12 years ago, we’re working with some of the best and largest retailers in the world across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Auror is connecting people and intelligence to reduce crime. We’re using technology for good. 

In partnership with our leading retail partners, we need people with the passion, determination, and innovation required to overcome one of the world's largest problems. If you’re looking to make a difference with and for the people dedicated to stopping crime, for good, then we want you on our team.

We're also embracing the potential of AI to supercharge our impact—whether that's enhancing the way we detect trends, support our customers, or improve internal workflows. As a company, we're committed to responsibly incorporating AI into how we work and what we build, and we encourage all Aurors to be curious about how AI can elevate their work, regardless of role or function.

The Role

Due to recent growth in our product work streams, we are on the look out for a Director of Product Management to help lead our incredible team and evolve our PM process to ensure we continue to deliver customer outcomes through the Auror product our customers love. This role will work closely alongside our two current Directors of Product Management and is a key leadership position in our Product Team. You will be leading a small team of product managers and will be responsible for the overall strategy of the products they own.

We’re looking for someone who aligns with our philosophy on how to build great products. That is, teams should have a strong understanding of who uses their product, how they use it, and how they feel about it. We believe PMs should be embedded with design and engineering teams, collaborating with cross-functional team members to make sure their product solves the problems they set out to.

Practically, this role will involve: 

• Product leadership: Co-managing our New Zealand based product management team (15 people), providing strategic direction and leadership, helping them grow and do the best work of their career. You’ll be working alongside our other two Directors of Product Management to set a high standard for product excellence and foster a collaborative and innovative product culture.
• Commercial and Strategic Leadership: Lead strategic decisions across product lines. Understand the commercial impact of your product lines on customers and the business. Observe and drive the response to changes in the competitive landscape.
• Product strategy: Collaborate with the Chief Product Officer, Directors of Product Management and other key stakeholders to align product strategy across our product suite with overall company goals and objectives.
• Product delivery: Play a key role in ensuring we ship high quality product, at a high cadence, that consistently delivers on customer outcomes, and taking ownership of ensuring we have effective go-to-market strategies.
• Product operations: Working with the product managers, wider product org, and customer teams to evolve how we support other teams to do their best work.
• Innovation: Stay abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies, and drive innovation across our product teams to ensure our products remain cutting-edge and competitive.
• Leverage Data and AI Thoughtfully: Identify opportunities to integrate AI into the platform in a sensible, safe, and impactful way. Collaborate cross-functionally to drive ethical AI practices.
• Measure and Communicate Success: Be fully across key metrics for your product lines and drive the response to changes in the metrics. Ensure wide visibility of the outcomes and learnings to stakeholders and the wider business.
• Mentorship and coaching: Coach and mentor your team of product managers to ensure they are effective.

This role reports to Tanya Johnson, Chief Product Officer.

Founder of Women in Tech NZ's Slack community and the Auckland Women in Tech Meetup, I'm really motivated by doing work that makes a meaningful difference in the world, and with supporting people in all the different ways they need to work well. "Context, Collaboration, and Cake" pretty accurately sums up my approach not only to work but to life in general. I'm enthusiastic about Taekwondo (which teaches me how to fail repeatedly and still persevere), love reading sci-fi and fantasy, and consider baking a good form of meditation. I'm excited to work with people who are curious about how things work, enjoy solving problems, think strategically, and are good at digging into details.

Requirements

You’re the ideal candidate if you have/are:

• Multiple years experience managing and leading teams of at least 3 product managers.
• A proven track record delivering world class B2B SaaS products to market.
• Strong strategic thinker with a history of owning and driving product strategy.
• Strong executor with a proven track record of shipping products fast to a high quality.
• Demonstrate strong commercial acumen with the ability to drive the financial side of product at the strategic cross-product line level.
• Experience building teams that love to work together and produce world class results.
• Strong people manager who cares deeply about the people around them, growing their careers and enabling them to do their best work.
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. Thoughtful, high empathy and social intelligence, with the ability to deliver all types of information and context to different people in ways that resonate.
• A desire to be a thought leader in this space and contributing, networking with the product management community. Through this, you’ll help Auror become known as one of the very best product teams around.
• Proactive, organised, focused, and with a strong bias for action and forward momentum.

Nice to have

• Experience working on products with a global scale (and teams in multiple regions and timezones)
• Experience innovating with new technologies (including AI & machine learning)

We are looking for people who demonstrate a strong alignment to our Guiding Principles (you can find these on our Careers page).

Auror is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible application process to all candidates and we are actively working to improve diversity within the tech industry. We celebrate diversity and inclusiveness at Auror, regardless of (but not limited to) race, gender, sexual orientation, family status, religion, ethnicity, national origin, physical disability, veteran status, or age.

If you need adjustments to any part of our recruitment process because of accessibility reasons, please do not hesitate to let us know during the application process. We will work with you to identify adjustments that will allow you to perform at your best.

Benefits

• Competitive salary range: Depending on level of experience, between $175,000 - $195,000 (PL5)

• Employee share scheme: You’ll own part of a company making a real difference!
• Flexibility: We are hard-working and outcome focused, but recognise there is more to life than work. We promote a healthy work/life blend.
• Shorter work weeks (at full pay): Everyone gets Friday afternoons off, so you can start your weekend early, and do more of whatever it is that makes you happy.
• Focus on mental and physical health: We understand how vital our health is and have policies to support your wellness, including Wellness Days,  and up to $750 NZD for expert sessions every year.
• Health insurance: We prioritise looking after your health by covering 100% of your individual health insurance plan through nib health insurance. 
• Family-friendly: We offer comprehensive paid parental leave - 12 weeks for birth parents and 6 weeks for non-birth parents following birth, adoption, or surrogacy, available to all Aurors from day one.
• Personal growth: We support our team to participate in courses, conferences, or events that will help them develop their skills.
• Team love: We have regular team lunches and social events where most (if not all) activities are during work hours.

Next steps:

If you’re excited about our mission and you have the experience and a passion for this role, please hit “Apply”.

If you’re not sure that you tick all the boxes but feel you’re close to what we’re looking for, please apply anyway! We’re proud that Auror is a place where everyone can learn and grow so we’d love to hear from you.

You'll be asked to submit a cover letter as part of your application. While this is optional we do encourage it, as we find cover letters can tell a story that resumes alone often cannot. Our hiring team love to understand what attracted you to this role and why you are excited about the opportunity to join Auror.

Once you apply, you’ll hear from us to acknowledge your application. If you have questions about any of the above, or if you have any accessibility requirements, we’ll be able to help you from there.