Rakuten TV
Program Manager (Product, Technology)
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Barcelona, Catalonia
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- C level
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Category
- Project management
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 7+ years of experience in PMO, program or delivery management within a software, product or technology organisation. Experience in streaming, media, adtech or B2B platforms is a plus.
- Proven track record of improving delivery predictability and execution quality in an engineering and product organisation.
- Solid understanding of how software is built and shipped, enough to earn the trust of engineers and Product Managers and to challenge estimates constructively.
- Strong analytical skills: comfortable building capacity models, tracking estimates against actuals and turning data into clear recommendations.
- Strategic thinking: able to understand business strategy, form an independent view and contribute to annual planning.
- Excellent communication and the ability to influence and drive accountability without formal authority, working with senior stakeholders across cultures and functions.
- Experience setting up lightweight processes and choosing the right tools; hands-on with project tracking and reporting tools (for example Jira, Confluence, spreadsheets, BI dashboards).
- Experience with agile delivery. Exposure to bid or RFP management and a PMP, PRINCE2 or similar certification are a plus.
- Fluency in English; Spanish or other European languages are a plus.
- High attention to detail, reliability, and a proactive approach to work.
Full description
What you'll do
- Delivery tracking and early warning.
- Own a single, trusted view of every roadmap item and cross-team project across Product & Technology: owner, dates, dependencies and status.
- Flag slips, blockers and cross-squad dependencies before they affect delivery, and publish a regular risk view for the CPO and CTO.
- Report planned versus delivered work by squad each month, and give the weekly squad spotlight facts rather than opinions.
- Escalate through agreed triggers, separating technical root causes (for the CTO to diagnose) from scope, resourcing or prioritisation issues (for you and the CPO to resolve).
- Execution pace and quality:
- Build and maintain a capacity view by team and squad, including shared and single-person dependencies, so that commitments are realistic.
- Track estimates against actuals to improve estimation accuracy and reduce the lag between commitment and delivery.
- Make sure launches, including channel, connector and telco launches, are managed end to end, with a post-launch check that the expected outcome was achieved.
- Work with engineering managers and squad leads to improve how work is planned and delivered, without trading quality for speed.
- Operating rhythm and process:
- Design, run and continuously simplify the processes Product & Technology works with: roadmap commitments, project intake, status definitions, the weekly squad spotlight and review cadences. Keep process light and proportionate: remove steps that do not improve outcomes.
- Choose and own the tools used for tracking and reporting, and keep them accurate and easy for squads to use.
- Strategy and annual planning:
- Develop a strong understanding of the company strategy and the Product & Technology roadmap, and bring a clear point of view to the CPO.
- Support the CPO in building the annual Product & Technology strategy and plan: priorities, trade-offs, capacity and sequencing.
- Connect strategy to execution by showing where plans and available capacity do not match, and proposing options.
- RFPs and large opportunities:
- Own and maintain the RFP process for large opportunities, such as end-to-end Enterprise services for telcos and white-label apps, including bid or no-bid criteria and response-time standards.
- Scout and qualify opportunities, and coordinate responses between Sales (commercial owner) and the technology team (technical input).
About the company & team
Rakuten TV is one of the leading Video On-Demand platforms in Europe, combining TVOD (Transactional Video-On-Demand), AVOD (Advertising Video-On-Demand), and FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV). Rakuten TV is available in 43 European territories and currently reaches more than 110 million households via its branded remote-control button and pre-installed app in Smart TV devices. Rakuten TV is part of Rakuten Group, Inc., one of the world's leading internet services companies, focusing on e-commerce, fintech, digital content, and communications.