Contract Product Manager

Location: Remote (EU-based, GMT timezone)

Department: Engineering

Employment Type: Contract (B2B)

Start date: 5th or 11th May 2026

Contract Length: 6 months (with potential for extension)

About YLD:

Everything we do is to empower our clients to move forward. Our purpose is to help our clients develop the capabilities they need to outperform their competitors. Our success is a consequence of ensuring our clients are successful. Our company is built on extraordinary people; we aim to attract, inspire, develop and retain them. YLD is a software engineering and design consultancy; we create digital capabilities for our clients that last beyond our engagement. We have offices in London, Lisbon, Porto.

About the role:

As a Product Manager consultant, you’ll be a part of a client team building innovative products. We expect you to be curious, passionate, driven, and enthusiastic. You’ll be proficient at problem-solving, an effective communicator and a team-player. You and your team will move in a fast-paced engineering environment, define product strategies, achieve outstanding results and deliver exciting projects.

Your day-to-day responsibilities will look like this:

• Collaborate with the client on product vision, help set your team goals and guide the team to ensure OKRs are achieved;
• Translate the product vision and roadmap through to delivery, operation and continuous improvement;
• Develop a deep understanding of customer personas, jobs-to-be-done and product behaviours;
• Lead multiple cross-functional squads to deliver innovative solutions, in line with roadmap and stakeholder expectations;
• Develop and prioritise a roadmap with the team along with a coherent product backlog that supports it;
• Manage and rigorously prioritise the backlog to ensure that it is up-to-date, relevant, and actionable, confidently narrowing 30+ incoming requests down to the 4–5 highest-impact initiatives;
• Optimise the best technical solutions to avoid over- and under-engineering problems, making sure that Development effort focuses on the right areas;
• Support multiple engineering squads working largely independently, while reporting into a dedicated Product/Delivery Manager to ensure alignment and clarity of expectations;
• Demonstrate high agency and ownership, able to push back constructively, defend product decisions with data and reasoning, and operate with genuine self-sufficiency.

Technical Competencies:

• At least 5+ years of Product Management experience;
• Experience with Telecommunications is desirable
• High level of technical fluency, including: Strong understanding of backend operational systems; Experience working with API integrations; Familiarity with high-level system architecture;
• Proficiency in Agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban);
• Experience collaborating with stakeholders to define and prioritise product features based on business goals, stakeholder expectations and market dynamics;
• Experience tracking and monitoring features’ performance and functionality after launch to ensure continuous improvement and iterations;
• Ability to identify, filter and prioritise stakeholder complaints and feedback effectively;
• Experience interpreting and applying user research and analytics to product decisions;
• Clear communication skills to present product plans, benefits, and results to the wider team, including C-level execs, external vendors and partners;
• Experience in ensuring timely delivery of features, as per previously agreed roadmap.

Non-Technical Competencies:

• Driven by performance measurement, analytical, with strong business acumen;
• Strong prioritisation skills under pressure;
• High agency and accountability, comfortable making decisions, challenging assumptions, and defending trade-offs when required;
• Product-oriented, with an analytical mindset;
• Focused on quality and understands what it means to ship high-quality, scalable solutions;
• Self-motivated, proactive and always looking for ways to improve yourself, the team and the product;
• Comfortable operating across multiple squads and stakeholder groups simultaneously;
• Diplomatic and emotionally intelligent, with the ability to listen and remain open to others’ points of view;
• A strong communicator, both in writing and verbally, able to explain technical ideas and concepts in business-friendly language;
• A genuine believer in diversity, fairness, and inclusion.

What you’ll get in return:

• The chance to work with a forw