Technical Product Manager

Vanilla Steel is a digital B2B platform serving the European metal industry with data and innovation with the mission of simplifying how steel and other metals are traded today.

We are a team of passionate tech entrepreneurs that combine more than 50 years of digital experiences with a passion for solving existing challenges through digitization.

We are looking for a talented Technical Product Manager to take ownership of the Technical aspects of the Product Management function and to join our tech team in building a world-class product.

It is an exciting time to join Vanilla Steel as we are rapidly growing our business operations and are offering a challenging but rewarding work environment with a steep learning curve.

The role is based in Berlin.

Tasks

As Technical Product Manager, you will be empowered to have ownership within specific product lines. You will work closely with the Founding team and existing product team to execute the product vision. You will be responsible to deliver an outstanding product to address the needs of the metal industry. You will cover the entire product lifecycle from product requirements, feature descriptions, prioritization, documentation, testing and release, but with a specific focus on technical product specifications.

You ll be passionate about product and user experience with customer needs at the heart of what you do. Specifically, you will:

• Have a key impact on shaping the product vision together with the Founders, ultimately building the product roadmaps to get us there
• Gather user requirements, write problem statements, hypotheses, and estimate opportunities
• Develop technical API specifications in JSON Schema that are well defined, accurate and complete
• Perform User Acceptance Testing for delivered specifications
• Be the voice of the customer within the technology team to inform product decisions and bring best in class features to market that address our users needs
• Work in a collaborative, cross-functional team, comprising software developers and business developers
• Define and analyze product metrics, and iterate quickly to deliver an optimal customer experience

Requirements

• 2+ years of Product Management experience, ideally in Technical Product Management in a fast-paced technology organization
• Background in software development, ideally backend
• Strong understanding of APIs, Swagger and JSON schema
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and manage information flow between business, design, tech and QA
• Strong quantitative, analytical and problem-solving skills, combined with a high level of initiative, and the ability to thrive in a multi-tasking, dynamic environment
• Experience with the methods of agile project management (e.g. Scrum, Kanban)
• Bachelor s degree in a quantitative field, such as Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Economics or equivalent preferred.
• Self-starter, able to deliver projects on time meeting high quality standards.
• Proficiency in English; German language skills is a plus

Benefits

• Unique opportunity to join a promising Berlin B2B start-up as an early employee
• Work closely with an experienced Founder team
• Unrivalled autonomy with flexible schedules and ownership
• Open and fun shared working environment/culture
• Office located in the heart of Berlin
• Competitive compensation