Career growth principles

First real-life experience in the product management field

As a product management trainee, you’ll join an existing product team in order to get acknowledged with our way of working. Initially, your main task will be to observe and learn, follow closely along with one of our more experienced PMs who will teach you about the instruments you’ll need, product terminology and our operating model.

You’ll work together with existing PMs on specific functional or technical tasks, which will help you get acknowledged with the product, the team, the tools we use, and our general way of working.

You take matters into your own hands with guidance from fellow teammates

You will get either the full responsibility over small product initiatives or partial responsibility over a larger product initiative. There will always be backing from a more experienced person in your surroundings. You steadily learn to:

- Operate our delivery model (planning, standups, roadmaps, demos/retros, ...)
- Interact with cross-functional teams (growth, design, software, data, ...)
- Bridge possible functional gaps between wireframes, design reviews and end-user validation
- Expose a product to end users by means of our growth principles
- Get an understanding of the various dimensions that are on the radar of a product manager

We distinguish between 2 sublevels:

- Daily check-ins needed: a more experienced PM will follow along with your daily standups and other syncs, guiding you in the daily process of managing the product as well as actively supporting you in guarding the roadmap and long term strategy.
- General check-ins needed: a more experienced PM will occasionally follow along with your daily standups and other syncs, as well as joining roadmap and other strategy meetings.

You can conceptualise and execute independently

You have a tight grip on the various dimensions in a product manager's scope. You are able to determine product objectives, build roadmaps, set milestones, motivate a team, organise customer success operations.

You can go the full distance from the initial product definition towards product-market-fit. You understand the fact that this process takes time and thoroughness. You can coach different chapters on quality standards that we wish to attain.

We distinguish between 2 sublevels:
- Executing the operating model: You know the ins and outs of our operating model and can safeguard its correct use across one or multiple product team(s).
- Shaping the operating model: You identify gaps or pain points in our operating model, are able to research and suggest possible improvements, and implement these changes.

You take ownership over fellow product managers

You are a mature product manager, guarding our quality standards and operating model across our entire product portfolio. You are able to context switch quickly, even between products not under your active management. You serve as a source of inspiration for next steps to take when other teammates are seeking inspiration. 

- Reviewing others: You support other product managers in their day to day operations, making sure the products under their umbrella are well managed.
- Mentoring others: You serve as a career mentor and general source of input to get the best out of the potential of your teammates.

You excel in your domain and act as a thought leader

You excel in the domain of product management, lead by example, give presentations, host webinars, recruit the brightest talents, … A point of mastery throughout your career. The next steps will be tailor made based on your personal preferences.

First professional experience in the product design sphere

Operational setting for our trainees: you become part of a specific product team where you aim to get a clear understanding of the product positioning and feature set. You will be gaining your first hands-on experience with Figma, working on designs based on predefined functional descriptions, both in low- and high-fidelity.

Step by step you will be guided through existing designs and you will get a chance to audit our portfolio products. You're expected to assess those critically and make suggestions for improvements. Throughout this learning process you will be guided explicitly by two people (alongside your other teammates):

• Product manager: functional questions and overall product direction
• Design chapter lead: safeguarding methodology and structure

You grow into your role with active guidance from others

Operationally: you are part of a specific product team where you can demonstrate that you understand the product positioning, users, persona's and overall objectives. You mostly work on known product problems but you'll steadily get a chance to perform research. You can organise file structures and design-technical skills in Figma or other prototyping tools. You actively follow courses through channels such as Projector or similar educational offerings.

Technically: you can design new features based on a written functional description or verbal objective. You'll always be able to count on the assistance of the product manager and your design chapter lead (alongside your other teammates).

You learn to operate in a cross-functional setting. We distinguish 2 sublevels:

1. Reviews required: it's required to have a component-level review of your delivered work. You should proactively ask for help or feedback from the proper people on a regular basis.

2. Reviews desired: you can work fairly autonomously but it is desired to still have periodic reviews of your delivered work, either on a functional or design-technical level.

You can demonstrate a great deal of independence in your day to day activities

You can demonstrate a great deal of independence, both on a functional and design-technical dimension. Your work is driven by proactive user research and product analytics. You have the ability to map insights into product design adjustments without a previous functional assessment by the product manager. Yet at the same time you still manage to align all stakeholders around the decisions being made. You widen your horizons to look at the broader user/customer journey, including marketing aspects and customer success.

1. Technical maturity: you can autonomously perform research and implement given product objectives without an explicit need for reviews.

2. Functional maturity: based on your research, you can proactively suggest new features, contribute to the product roadmap and materialise the findings in clickable prototypes.

You inspire others

You are mature in the product design domain and you can transfer knowledge, methodology and hard skills to others. You understand the career and skill development process of a product designer and you can serve as a mentor to others. You can deal with great complexity and still find a structured way towards correct results.

1. Reviewing others: you can perform detailed assessments of the performed work of more junior teammates and you formalise feedback to be processed in a constructive manner.

2. Mentoring others: you serve as a career mentor and general source of input to get the best out of the potential of your teammates.

Domain mastery

You excel in your domain, lead by example, give presentations, host webinars, recruit the brightest talents, … A point of mastery throughout your career. The next steps will be tailor made based on your personal preferences.

First working experience in the web development sphere

You will become part of an existing product team early on where you will receive specific tasks from the product manager or experienced teammates. The main objective is to facilitate a rapid learning path. You should quickly get familiar with our operational habits and with the technical project setup. The main evaluation criteria will be your learning pace (ability to absorb and retain new information). The whole team will always be at your disposal to help out where needed, so please don't hesitate to ask questions and involve others.

Gaining valuable hands-on experience with team guidance

You are ready to work on specific features under guidance of other teammates. You don't blindly implement but you aspire a deeper understanding of the technology base and our specific project setup. You actively ask questions to your peers and you remain highly focused on rapid growth in skills. You participate in the entire operational model from the sprint planning and daily standups onto the sprint demo and retrospective. You speak up and become a constructive part in making product progress.

1. Reviews required: you are able to contribute to the product development process with active guidance and code reviews from teammates.

2. Reviews desired: you proactively ask your teammates for code reviews and the learnings that come with them.

Qualitative software delivery in a fairly independent manner

You attain a good level of autonomy in your day to day software delivery activities. You grasp the principles of qualitative product development in all of its aspects including testing, CI/CD, infrastructure aspects and data/API structures.

1. Technical maturity: you can confidently take up technical challenges where you can independently define and deliver the necessary steps from problem statement to technical resolution. You can weigh in on key technical decisions where you stand your ground and make your case clearly. You fundamentally understand that outstanding technical delivery is about more than clean coding.

2. Functional maturity: you can take up direct calls with key stakeholders when needed where you can explain your point of view clearly and with the necessary substance. You are an example throughout the operating model in the planning sessions, daily standups and demo/retrospectives.

You coach and inspire your teammates

You take ownership over fellow teammates: about their career trajectory and quality of delivered work. You serve as a mentor to others. You continuously improve the methodology and setup we are working with.

1. Reviewing others: you do code reviews for teammates and give operational steering and guidance

2. Mentoring others: you actively mentor teammates with separate calls and coaching sessions to make them live up to their full potential

Domain mastery

You excel in your domain, lead by example, give presentations, host webinars, recruit the brightest talents, … A point of mastery throughout your career. The next steps will be tailor made based on your personal preferences.

Your first professional experience in the growth marketing domain

Coming soon

You work under explicit instructions from your teammates

Coming soon

You're able to set your own agenda and take ownership over growth metrics

Coming soon

You coach and inspire your teammates

Coming soon

You have domain authority and serve as a thought leader

Coming soon