Senior Product Manager, Welcome to the Jungle (formerly Otta)

At Otta there is a lot of autonomy to solve problems. That makes it very challenging but also making it creative. One of our key values is "we challenge because we care", which defines the culture quite, well, we care about making a product great for candidates and we take ourselves out of the equation and challenge our ideas, solutions, thinking

There is a lot of focus on autonomy. I fell like I am trusted to do my own work and have never felt like I have been micromanaged. We have smart people around us who really care about our product, and we also trust them to do their job right

Our first value is "Candidates first", we believe that we are here to help candidates find a job they like. Having experienced what it means to work in a great company, we want our situation to be the same for the rest of job seekers

We've all had terrible experiences when trying to find a new role - it's at best tolerable and at worst utterly soul destroying. Because of Otta's candidate-first vision, I'd been a user of Otta for some time before being fortunate enough to land a role here. It's a huge opportunity to turn job search into a fulfilling experience.

We're able to work flexibly, which is brilliant for me as I'm a parent and I live quite far from London. We spend two days a week in the office, which means we get a good level of interaction and collaboration - but we're great at doing it asynchronously and remotely as well!

Otta has more than doubled in size since I've joined, which has meant a whole load of fantastic new people, perspectives, and experience coming together fast. We've also scaled our operations globally, which is not only incredibly exciting, but also gives us the opportunity to learn fast and make an impact even faster.

Otta has flipped the whole process of searching for a job on its head, focusing on candidates rather than companies. Creating the best possible experience for those using the platform to find their next roles is front and centre of every decision made within the business and it's incredible to be working somewhere truly disrupting an entire industry.

They offer personal development and wellness budgets but there's also a real focus on just checking on yourself/your colleagues and a belief that your mental health is just as important as your physical health, which isn't something that was even discussed at my previous roles.

At Otta, everyone is encouraged to give feedback and challenge thought processes during the decision-making process. Everyone's opinions are valued and often, new processes are implemented only after your whole team sit down to discuss best first/next steps. There's also regular contact with those in senior leadership roles, who are always happy to have a chat over a coffee or give you feedback on your latest suggestion.

I joined just over 2 weeks ago. In this time, Otta have highlighted the importance of their company values and I can see through the business. From being thoughtful of these values in our day-to-day work to shouting out our co-workers during the weekly all-hands. Otta have made it clear why these values are important and help us grow together.

Otta are a company who lead by example. They're pushing for salary transparency as they believe this is candidate-first experience, and this follows through in my experience working for Otta. From my application, to receiving my offer and now joining, Otta have been clear about the salary bands and equity. In fact, they offer equity to all employees. They believe in people being fairly compensated and this is a value that I think is really important to them.

We're growing really fast as a company and I believe that joining a high-growth company also translates into high personal growth. We were around 30 people in January, just over 40 when I joined (in April) and soon to be 60 in May. We're also moving to a much larger office. It's an exciting time to join with our recent US launch and current launch across the EU.

Onboarding into the business was a lot of fun. Otta gives you a good balance of learning and time to reflect when you join. Everybody in the business gets stuck in with the onboarding, at various levels and across multiple teams. You're also encouraged to book coffees and 1-2-1s with anybody you want to get to know better!

The team and company have a great energy about them. I think because we all believe in the mission of our business 100%, at times we get together there's a real sense of drive and determination to perform at our very best, and to see each other succeed

The senior leadership and management have made it really easy to have what would have been difficult conversations in other companies. Whether it's personal or professional, you will be listened to, you can assume discretion, and that your opinions will be taken on board

Theres always something new and challenging to tackle that keeps you on your toes and excited about whats next. You have the opportunity to go deep in any area of the tech stack whether it is optimizing animations in the frontend, tweaking the recommendation engine, or dealing with API integrations. The company is growing fast and always looking for new opportunities so theres always plenty of meaty projects to go around

Looking back to when I've joined, I'm amazed at how much I've picked up during my time here. The range of interesting work that I've done meant that I've learnt a lot simply by doing a lot of different and challenging things. At the same time, there are plenty of smart people to exchange ideas with and learn from.

I joined mainly because I was impressed by the calibre of people then and that has continued to be the case as more people joined. It is great working with smart people with impressive and diverse backgrounds who bring a lot to the table. I feel like I'm learning a lot from the people here

Working at Otta has been incredibly energizing as I find my work so meaningful, giving me a strong sense of purpose every day. As we work hard to ensure candidates have the best experience when looking for their next role, being part of the Otta team is super rewarding and just what I was missing in my past role.

The Otta team is growing at an impressive rate across functions, making it an increasingly exciting place to work. This means there are plenty of opportunities to learn and new approaches to solving problems within hiring are constantly arising as the team grows.

Our values are clear from the get-go and regularly celebrated across functions. We spend time each week celebrating how our colleagues demonstrate each value, which reinforces how we're constantly embodying our values.

As a recruiter, my own beliefs on what constitutes good recruitment align so well with the mission of Otta, particularly being candidate-first and delivering on this promise. Job-search can be soul crushing, but is made much more energising with a product like ours.

I've been given the autonomy to work on a bunch of different initiatives that have pushed me out of my comfort zone, while having such a supportive leadership team to spar with. Not only have I learned through the responsibilities of the role, I've also learned a lot about myself - the areas where I'm strong, and where I can come out stronger. We're big on feedback to help us learn, too.

I absolutely love the people I work with. Everyone is incredibly smart and supportive, and we do a bunch of things to help us connect more with each other, so that trickles down into the way we collaborate and communicate with one another. Typically, a lot of people roles can get lonely, but it's been far from it here!

From very transparent all-hands, 1:1s with managers and lots of interesting channels on Slack, the communication at Otta is amazing. I have never felt so connected with the company as whole. This is vastly different to all other companies I have worked at and incredibly refreshing - truly unique.

At Otta I have found that everyone is kind, very smart and always open to sharing what they are working on. This not only makes my days fun, but also helps my progression massively. I always enjoy having lunch together everyday, company socials and having a drink with colleagues after work!

Otta really is tackling recruitment from a different angle and in the process creating lots and lots of difficult problems. Everyday I am challenged to think about the scale, impact and speed of my work. This is certainly the most challenging work I have undertaken in my career, yet it never feels too daunting, I always have colleagues and managers to guide me should I drift of course. I cannot recommend Otta highly enough to anyone wanting to progress their career further.

Otta is solving real problems for real people. Having real frustrations with searching for a job in the past, it's motivating to come to work every day and try to fix those frustrations for other people. We're always thinking "candidate first" and focus on delivering value for the users of the platform

I've been able supercharge my career since joining Otta. I've been trusted to take on responsibility and own things from day 1 which has been invaluable experience for me. It's really clear what's expected of me and what I can do to improve.

At Otta everyone is really open and transparent when communicating. Whether that be where we're headed or what we're working on now, everyone is able to stay on the same page, with weekly team meetings, and all communication encouraged to be in public slack channels. Also I feel safe to voice my thoughts and to be heard and taken seriouslly

I love working for Otta because we are solving an issue faced by every jobseeker in the market. We are making a genuine impact on life-changing decisions for candidates and can see that in the feedback they leave. Launching a career in tech is something that should be accessible & enjoyable for everyone, and Otta is enabling that.

Decision making at Otta is based on making a strong case vs. personalities. Deep consideration goes into each decision that is made. We also are happy to challenge each other if we disagree, and that is a core part of how we improve what we are doing for candidates. We give feedback which helps all of us to improve.

The leadership team genuinely care about wellbeing and I feel very comfortable discussing difficult subjects with my manager. I feel that I can be open and will be supported if I discuss challenging things going on outside of work that are having an impact on me.

There are weekly product / engineering lunch and learns, with monthly ones for the wider business which present the opportunity to learn about different technologies or even areas of the business that you don't often touch. There is also a generous budget for personal development that can be spent on courses (among others) to help you expand your knowledge further!

When I first joined Otta, I had little knowledge of the specific technologies used in our Tech stack, but the onboarding process was so well thought out and executed that by two weeks in I felt comfortable working on my own tickets, with the opportunity to ask questions if needed.

I have never worked with a more hard working team that gets through the tickets as fast and at such a high standard as the engineers at Otta do! They're also always up for a chat to explain their thought process behind their method, or to break down how a particular technology works.

I joined Otta for a few reasons, but one of the biggest was the company's mission. At Otta, we want to give the power back to the candidate, which is a refreshing change of pace. What's even nicer is that everyone who works here truly believes in the mission, and that we have what it takes to succeed. Being surrounded by people who believe in your company as much as you do really helps to keep you energised!

While the work is challenging, what stands out for me the most is that the work we're doing is always meaningful. Coming from a variety of other careers and companies, that's something that was very important to me. It's imperative that the work I do has an impact and larger meaning to it-- which it does here at Otta. On top of that, if the meaning behind why we need to work on something isn't clear, everyone in the company is so transparent and communicative that it's easy to ask 'Why?'.

Flexible working at Otta has been nothing short of a godsend for a number of reasons: I can run errands when I need to, I can work from home whenever I would like to, and I'll be able to see my family abroad for the first time in two years for an extended period of time because I'm able to work for a few weeks while I'm there! For me, this has been one of the best parts about working for Otta. I also struggle a bit with my mental health from time to time, and it's so nice to know that I can work from home whenever I need to or would like to, in order to accommodate that.

Otta is really seeking to disrupt the job search industry rather than just become an efficient cog in the job search machine. This is what drew me to the product in the first place, and now working here it is so evident that the candidate journey is at the front and centre of everything we do, and within every department's decision making. Having everyone pull in the same direction makes such a difference to the atmosphere within the company and also the trajectory of the business.

There's a real focus on making sure that people grow and develop both within their role, and also developing outside interests too. There's a £500 personal development budget to use on whatever will be most beneficial to you as an individual, and everyone in the business is encouraged to create 3-month missions to develop in your role, which is really useful when at earlier stages of your career.

There's a wellness budget to spend on whatever you choose, but there are also more subtle touches that show that the business really cares about each individual rather than simply output. There are regular inclusive socials, a real emphasis on flexible working to suit you, and check-ins with the team at all seniority levels within the business.

You're encouraged to work across the stack with a range of new and interesting technologies (Elixir, Phoenix, ML, Typescript etc.)

Otta is committed to unearthing diverse talent in the product itself, as well as the engineering team and company as a whole. This takes time but is paying off now.

Rapid market growth underway and lots of exciting opportunities to do things at scale.

Great communication is one of my favourite highlights of working at Otta. There are weekly company meetings where everyone shares their findings, as well as 1-on-1s that serve as a reflective process to discuss how you've found the week and what could be improved. Furthermore, you have a monthly 1-on-1 where you have the space to ask any further questions about the company direction and more. I love that the discussions are transparent and thoughtful.

I was drawn to Otta by the enthusiasm and novel approach to job search - one that prioritises candidates. There is a lot of thought and meaningful work that goes on behind the scenes, from the tech decisions in building a candidate-focused platform, to dedicating hours to talking to candidates about finding a role that is meaningful to them and what other features they would like to see on the product. Additionally, reading the lovely emails coming in from candidates who are loving their new roles is both rewarding and motivating.

Otta knocks it out of the park when it comes to employee wellbeing. Everyone here is very understanding and supportive, you have weekly 1-on-1s to talk about anything that's on your mind, and decisions are made with employee wellbeing in mind. The team dinners and games are also a highlight, I've really enjoyed them! Furthermore, you get a handsome yearly budget to spend on anything wellbeing related of your choosing.

I'm constantly working across a range of really exciting and varied projects that are crucial to the ongoing success of the business. Whether it's developing our first sales strategy, or figuring out the best way to reach more candidates, I feel stretched and challenged in ways I haven't been in my career before.

Although I joined in the middle of a pandemic, I had a really enjoyable onboarding experience! Everyone was incredibly friendly and I had the opportunity to spend lots of 1-on-1 time with each member of the team during my first week. There were great resources to get me up to speed – and the founders spent a lot of time giving me detailed context for the business, which really helped to prepare me to hit the ground running.

Data is at the heart of almost everything we do at Otta, whether it's deciding if a new feature has improved the candidate experience, or if our current sales messaging is hitting the spot with our customers. I really like the emphasis on making good, thoughtful and efficient decisions (there's lots of 80/20 thinking here!) informed by data – it helps me prioritise my day-to-day work and come up with better solutions to the challenges facing our company, and candidates at large.