Product Manager, Rakuten Kobo
Digital bookseller
Job no longer available
Digital bookseller
501-1000 employees
Job no longer available
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To bring the power of reading to the world.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate has experience working on technical products, with experience in driving growth and retention, and is passionate about doing right by our customers
- You are diligent, exhibit exceptional attention to detail, and are a strong communicator
- If you’re driven, analytical, creative, organized, adaptable, performance-focused, and able to deliver high-quality work within a fast-paced environment, we want to hear from you
- 4+ years experience working in a Product role, with experience in driving growth and retention for B2C products. Bonus if you have experience working with digital consumer products
- Outstanding verbal and written communication to various audiences within the organization
- Demonstrated ability to convey insights from complex analysis to non-technical business users at varying levels of familiarity
- Technical experience and curiosity with the ability to demonstrate the importance and impact of technical work to non-technical audiences
- A track record of identifying important user problems, executing on them with high impact to the users and organization
- Strong analytical and quantitative skills to deeply understand the space, the product’s performance, identifying opportunities and gaps
- Experience working in an Agile software development environment
- Curious and actively staying ahead of competitive landscapes and industry trends
- Outstanding organizational skills, self-motivated, creative problem solver with a high attention to detail
- Dedication to continual self-improvement and learning
- A love of reading, obviously
What the job involves
- Our Product team is searching for an enthusiastic Product Manager who can help shape the way customers interact with our products and services
- As the Product Manager you will report to the Senior Product Manager, Reading Experience and be a key contributor on the team
- You will be part of a diverse and collaborative environment and a key point of contact for R&D teams taking products from idea to reality
- Your day-to-day tasks include research, writing various product documentation, planning initiatives, defining product iterations, being responsible for managing a product backlog & roadmap, reporting and analyzing product performance for continuous improvements
- This role is in our Reading Experience team working on our Web Reader experience
- Assume end-to-end responsibility for a product that is used by multiple devices and platforms
- You must be proficient with the four core functions of product management:
- Understand the user, our business and the broader market. This means working with our UX and research teams to identify user problems; determine how they impact business performance and becoming the expert in the market space of digital reading and listening
- Identify the right user problems to solve based on user and business impact
- Deliver by working with design, software development teams to prioritize, plan and launch various experiments & solutions to the problem
- Analyze the data to understand how the product is working and then plan for what’s next
- Define a vision and roadmap for the Web Reader, communicating it throughout the organization to gain alignment and prioritization. Engaging various cross-functional groups to keep them involved and aligned through the progress
- Review research, customer feedback channels, and product analytics, seeking problems to solve for users and opportunities to improve your product
Our take
Long-form content is having a resurgence. That’s great news for the e-reader industry, of which Rakuten’s Kobo battles with Amazon’s Kindle for ownership.
The e-reader giant has changed tack in recent years to pursue growth via integrations and partnerships. A notable example is its native device integration with Pocket, a wishlist app loved by millions of readers.
The company is hoping that these partnerships and product improvements will allow it to finally break the US market where it most struggles for market share with Kindle.
Amazon has consistently shown its willingness to drop prices to protect its position in any market it plays in. That means that Kobo will have to demonstrate true product superiority to make a dent while protecting its margins.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- "Work from anywhere" policy
- Flexible hours
- Internet/phone/commuting allowance
- Daily meal allowance when in the office
- $500 CAD flexible spending account
- Parental leave top-up
- Unlimited sick and mental health days
- 4-day summer holiday weekends
- RRSP matching, bonus and stock options
- Free Kobo eReader
- Free weekly book of your choice
- Volunteer time off
Company HQ
Liberty Village, Toronto, ON
Leadership
Michael Tamblyn
(CEO)Part of the founding team of Kobo, Michael previously held the role of Chief Content Officer. Michael has also been the founding CEO of the supply chain agency, BookNet Canada and co-founded Canada’s first online bookstore, Bookshelf.ca, purchased by Indigo Books & Music in 1998.
Anna Giagkou
(CFO)Prior to joining Rakuten Kobo in 2021, Anna was the CFO of Cox Automotive Canada.
Nimod Narayanan
(CTO)Nimod joined Rakuten Kobo in 2022 as VP of Technology, he then became the SVP of Technology in 2023, and CTO in 2025. Prior to this, he spent nearly 4 years at Rogers Communications joining as a Senior Development Manager before becoming a Director of eCommerce & Personalization and then Senior Director of Digital Platforms & Services.
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