Product Manager

BTC Education works to expand access to meaningful educational and developmental opportunities for young people. Through international programmes, local initiatives, internships, research opportunities and other learning experiences, BTC connects students with opportunities that help them develop their skills, interests and potential.

BTC Passport is an emerging digital platform designed to help students discover relevant opportunities, plan their development, record their achievements and build a portfolio of experiences over time.

We are looking for a Product Manager to help translate this vision into a practical, user-friendly product and guide its development in collaboration with our technical developer, students, parents and BTC's programming team.

The Product Manager will serve as the bridge between users, the technical developer, and BTC's programme and operations teams. The role will focus on understanding user needs, defining product requirements, coordinating development, gathering feedback after each MVP release, and identifying opportunities to improve and expand BTC Passport.

This is a non-technical role. The successful candidate does not need to code or have a software engineering background, but must be comfortable working with developers, understanding product functionality, documenting requirements and managing a structured development process.

• Develop and maintain the BTC Passport product roadmap in consultation with BTC leadership, the developer and the programming team.
• Translate BTC's vision and programme objectives into clear product goals, features and priorities.
• Break product ideas into manageable requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Maintain a prioritised product backlog, distinguishing essential MVP features from improvements and longer-term ideas.
• Identify dependencies, risks and decisions that could affect the development timeline.
• Ensure that product development remains aligned with BTC's strategic objectives, user needs and available resources.

• Act as the primary point of coordination between the developer and BTC's internal teams.
• Explain user needs and programme requirements clearly to the developer, without prescribing unnecessary technical solutions.
• Organize regular development meetings, track progress and follow up on pending decisions and deliverables.
• Review demonstrations of new features and check whether they meet the agreed requirements.
• Test each MVP version before release, document bugs and usability issues, and coordinate their resolution.
• Maintain clear documentation of product decisions, requirements, changes and release notes.
• Help manage scope changes and ensure that new requests are prioritized rather than added informally.

• Identify and engage relevant users, including students, parents, BTC staff and programme partners.
• Conduct interviews, surveys, usability tests and feedback sessions to understand user needs and challenges.
• Coordinate structured feedback collection after every MVP release.
• Observe how users navigate the platform and identify areas of confusion, friction or low engagement.
• Analyse feedback to distinguish recurring problems from individual preferences.
• Convert findings into actionable product improvements and prioritised recommendations.
• Maintain a feedback tracker and communicate back to users, where appropriate, about improvements made in response to their input.

• Develop simple test plans and scenarios for each feature and release.
• Test the platform from the perspective of different users, particularly students and BTC administrators.
• Verify that key user journeys work as intended, from account creation and opportunity discovery to planning, recording achievements and reviewing submissions.
• Track defects, usability issues and feature requests through to resolution.
• Establish practical measures of product performance, such as successful onboarding, feature usage, completion of key actions, user satisfaction and recurring support issues.
• Recommend whether a release is ready for wider use, requires further testing or needs additional changes.

• Research comparable platforms, emerging tools and relevant practices in student development, opportunity discovery and digital portfolios.
• Identify opportunities to improve BTC Passport's value for students, parents, BTC and programme partners.
• Gather ideas from the programming, sales, operations and leadership teams.
• Evaluate proposed features based on user value, strategic fit, feasibility, development effort and cost.
• Explore potential integrations, partnerships and new use cases that could strengthen the platform.
• Prepare concise recommendations for new features, improvements and future product phases.
• Help ensure that the product evolves in response to evidence rather than assumptions.

• Work closely with programme staff to understand the opportunities BTC offers and the needs of students using the platform.
• Ensure that opportunity listings, eligibility criteria, deadlines and programme information are accurate and useful.
• Identify where existing programme workflows could be simplified or supported through BTC Passport.
• Coordinate internal testing and onboarding so that staff understand how to use the platform.
• Collect feedback from programme teams and identify operational issues that require product changes or improved processes.
• Help define clear responsibilities for maintaining opportunity data, reviewing student submissions and responding to user queries.

• Provide regular updates on development progress, milestones, blockers, risks and upcoming decisions.
• Prepare a brief product update after each MVP release, covering user feedback, issues identified and proposed next steps.
• Maintain a simple dashboard of product development progress and usage indicators.
• Communicate product decisions clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Escalate significant risks, delays, cost implications or changes in scope to the relevant leadership.

• Ensure that user needs and safeguarding considerations are incorporated into product requirements and testing.
• Pay particular attention to the fact that BTC Passport is intended for young people, including minors.
• Coordinate with BTC leadership and the developer to ensure appropriate parental consent, role-based access, privacy protections and secure handling of student information and uploaded evidence.
• Identify potential risks in user journeys and ensure they are addressed before features are released.
• Avoid collecting unnecessary personal information and support clear processes for handling user concerns and requests.

• Bachelor's degree in business, management, social sciences, education, design, public policy or a related field.
• Approximately 2–5 years of relevant experience in product management, project management, programme design, user research, digital product development or a similar coordination role.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams and translating stakeholder needs into actionable requirements.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to organise work, manage priorities and follow through on deliverables.
• Experience conducting interviews, surveys, user testing or other forms of structured feedback collection.
• Comfort working with digital products, web applications and basic product management tools.
• Strong analytical thinking and the ability to use evidence to make recommendations.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, navigate changing requirements, and maintain momentum across different workstreams.
• A technical degree or coding experience is not required. Candidates must, however, be willing and able to learn how digital products are developed and to collaborate effectively with a technical developer.

• Experience working with education technology, youth development, student platforms, learning management systems or social-impact organizations.
• Experience launching or improving an MVP or early-stage digital product.
• Familiarity with tools such as Trello, Asana, Jira, Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets or similar platforms.
• Understanding of user journeys, wireframes, prototypes, user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Experience working with young people and understanding of safeguarding and data privacy considerations.
• Ability to work with both strategic objectives and detailed operational requirements.

• Product thinking: Understands the problem to be solved before proposing a feature.
• User empathy: Can listen to users and identify the underlying need behind their feedback.
• Structured execution: Converts ideas into requirements, priorities, timelines and deliverables.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Communicates effectively with developers, programme staff and leadership.
• Analytical judgement: Uses evidence and practical reasoning to make trade-offs.
• Ownership: Follows issues through to resolution rather than merely passing them between teams.
• Adaptability: Comfortable working on an evolving product where requirements may change as learning improves.
• Clear communication: Can explain complex product decisions in accessible language.