Director of Product & Technology (hybrid from Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

About Global App Testing

• Put simply, when the likes of Google or Facebook need to globally test their apps, they use Global App Testing. We help companies all around the world to accelerate growth through our crowd-enabled testing platform for web and mobile apps.
• Internationalising software at speed has become increasingly problematic, with the vast combination of new devices, operating system upgrades and global network providers.
• By taking a customer-focused approach to quality, hundreds of leading brands, including Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, General Electric and Apple, rely on Global App Testing’s platform to improve quality at a speed that allows agile and DevOps teams to release faster and more often, confident in their product-market fit.

Our Mission and culture

• At Global App Testing, we have the capability to leverage over 50,000 assessed and professional testers with real devices in real environments in over 189 countries.
• We’ve also gained worldwide recognition for innovations in the testing field - most notably creating Testathons and publishing a best-selling book called Leading Quality (a definitive guide and philosophy on how the right QA can increase your speed, scale, and global growth). Testathons, (hackathons for testers), have now run in over 35 countries with leading tech teams from the likes of Spotify and Instagram.
• At Global App Testing we’ve created an open and inclusive environment where you can play to your strengths whilst stretching yourself to become the best version of yourself. We believe focusing on your core skills, enjoying your work, building lasting internal relationships, and collaborating with other equally passionate and world-class people is a recipe for your success.
• We embrace an inclusive and friendly environment, knowing how important it is to have a healthy work-life balance.

The Director of Product & Technology role is a Leadership Team position based in our Cluj-Napoca Office, reporting to our CEO Nick Viney. This is primarily a product leadership role - you will be responsible for defining and executing our product strategy while managing our technical teams to deliver exceptional user experiences. You’re passionate about understanding customer workflows and ensuring our technical investments drive measurable business value.

This role is central to shaping how our technology, product and operations can come together to scale the business effectively. You will be sitting next to and working alongside some of the most senior leaders, high-potential managers and teams. Being able to integrate with this community but also fulfil your role is a critical requirement of the position.

You are a leader who thrives at the intersection of Engineering, Product and Operations. You understand technology deeply enough to challenge assumptions and guide direction, but you’re equally passionate about building great products, connecting teams and ensuring commercial and community success. Being able to span both of these fields is another critical element of success.

What You’Ll Be Doing:

• Represent everything related to Product & Technology at the LT level, ensuring strategy and execution are tightly aligned with business goals, and we continue to deliver for today but scale and build for tomorrow (the next 1-3 years).
• Develop our product strategy and investment plan with clear prioritisation based on user needs, business impact and technical feasibility. 
• Own the user experience across our platform, from tester onboarding to customer portal interactions.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration between Product & Engineering, Operations, Project Management, Community Management and our Commercial teams. Collaborate closely with technical leaders to ensure our architecture supports the product vision. Translate product requirements into technical specifications that the engineering team can execute upon.
• Manage and develop our existing Product and Engineering teams to ensure our systems, platforms & tools scale, improve our efficiency & productivity and embrace innovation.
• Support and mentor our technical leaders and community, building strong teams to deliver now and to embrace future-ready capabilities as they arise, like AI and Automation.
• Lead major change initiatives, certifications and audits for our technology-driven solutions covering all aspects of the change - technical, people and any investment required.
• Define and track OKRs across Product, Engineering and related functions, ensuring a tight alignment with our company-wide priorities so that they both enable and drive each other.
• Oversee budgets and capacity planning for the technical teams and provide regular visibility of and reporting on technology progress across the business, both to the LT & to our Board.

What Success Looks Like In 12 Months:

• Our product investment plan is agreed, advanced and delivers meaningful business results for the company in critical areas like scalability, creativity and efficiency.
• Platform consolidation completed with a unified, intuitive user experience that eliminates current workflow duplications.
• User satisfaction improvements demonstrated through reduced support tickets and improved user feedback scores.
• Clear product roadmap has been established and being executed upon with measurable business impact and product development delivery rates improved through better requirements and clearer priorities.
• A clear overall strategic direction for technology leadership and innovation is in place and driving measurable results for the business.
• You have understood and addressed any critical gaps in the business today whether in the Core Platform, Product Investment or Customer Portfolio areas of our technology.
• Systems and business processes have been upgraded to allow for a faster, more reliable and secure delivery across the business but also considering dependencies.
• Engineering, Product and Operations are working together seamlessly with clear metrics in place and a >4/5 rating from cross-departmental collaboration as measured by our internal employee surveys.
• Your department achieves a positive eNPS scoring with strong retention & an environment where people can learn and grow to be the future technical leaders of GAT.
• You’ve established strong, transparent relationships with the other Cluj leaders and the LT.
• A culture of continuous improvement, experimentation & learning is embedded into our tech teams so that people are not afraid to take risks, learn fast and want to lead our industry.

Requirements

• 8-10+ years of experience in Product, Engineering or hybrid technology leadership roles with demonstrated success managing complex B2B platforms and proven experience leading product consolidation or transformation projects.
• Strong user experience focus; you instinctively think about user workflows and pain points; and experience with SaaS platforms and understanding of software development lifecycle integration.
• At least 5+ years in a senior leadership position, ideally incorporating both technology and management positions across either matrix and/or distributed/ remote teams.
• Technical depth sufficient to challenge engineering assumptions and guide architectural decisions. Therefore, experience in bridging product and engineering. You can translate between business needs and technical solutions.
• Proven success in leading those cross-functional teams, especially where technology meets operations and being able to articulate that incremental value/ benefits/ change delivered.
• Strong analytical and systems thinking, change management and delivery expertise.
• Solid experience in business strategy/ planning and budget management to the LT level.
• Excellent communication, leadership and organisational skills.
• A track record of developing high-performing leaders & teams and collaborating successfully with peers in both your local office and across the LT.
• Based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, with the willingness to travel regularly to coordinate with the Poland/ Germany-based Engineering team.
• Comfortable with hands-on application usage. You will spend significant time using our products to understand the user experience.

Benefits

Role Benefits

• Team culture - Team culture plays a huge role in what we do here at Global App Testing. From monthly outings to weekly gatherings, we make sure that everyone is included, appreciated, and part of the team.
• Your personal growth - We are huge on personal development and will dedicate time to helping to make sure you achieve your personal and professional goals and bucket lists.
• Responsibility and creative freedom - you'll have a role that will be vital to the company’s success and every idea you come up with will always be considered.

Benefits Package

• Competitive salary
• Annual bonus
• Potential equity plan
• Private Healthcare Insurance
• 25 days of paid holiday
• Meal tickets
• Flexible working location and hours - a hybrid contract subject to business needs
• Educational assistance and personal career development and mentoring