Reports To: Head of Product, AI & Intelligence
Role Type: Senior Individual Contributor
Location: Hybrid (Cape Town / Remote)
We are looking for someone who sees noise, finds the signal, and turns uncertain business problems into products worth building.
At VEA, product leadership starts before roadmaps, before Jira boards, before engineering stand-ups. It starts with judgment. This role is for the person who can sit in a room full of competing ideas, strip away the fluff, and identify what actually creates value.
If you naturally ask:
“What problem are we really solving, and why does it matter now?”
Then you’ll probably feel at home here.
You’ll operate at the front end of product creation: shaping opportunities, testing assumptions, validating commercial logic, and defining what deserves engineering attention.
Not every idea should be built. Your job is knowing the difference.
What You’ll Actually Do
- Lead Product Discovery: Take broad strategic goals and turn them into clearly defined product opportunities.
- Define the Real Problem: Separate symptoms from root issues before resources get committed.
- Validate Before We Build: Test demand, desirability, feasibility, and commercial logic early.
- Write Lean PRDs: Produce sharp, outcome-driven Product Requirement Documents that engineers can trust and act on.
- Commercial Thinking: Pressure-test value propositions, pricing logic, market relevance, and ROI before momentum takes over.
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Work directly with design, engineering, AI, and data teams to shape what enters the build pipeline.
- Stakeholder Translation: Move comfortably between executive strategy and technical execution without losing clarity.
Who You Are
- A Product Thinker First: You understand product is not feature production, it is disciplined problem solving.
- Commercial by Nature: You instinctively think about value, leverage, pricing, and market fit.
- Strong in Ambiguity: You do not need perfect information to make intelligent calls.
- Structured Without Becoming Bureaucratic: You bring clarity without slowing momentum.
- Comfortable with Senior Rooms: You can challenge assumptions respectfully when the logic is weak.
- Technically Fluent Enough: You don’t need to code, but engineers do not need to simplify everything for you.
What You Are Explicitly Not
- A traditional business analyst writing requirements nobody reads.
- A backlog administrator moving tickets between columns.
- A delivery coordinator hiding behind ceremonies.
Required Experience
- 8+ years in product management, venture building, or product leadership roles.
- Strong product discovery and validation track record.
- Experience shaping products before delivery starts.
- Proven ability to work with senior leadership and technical teams.
- Clear commercial judgment.
Why Join Us?
- Front-End Influence: You help decide what gets built, not just how it gets delivered.
- Real Strategic Exposure: Direct access to high-level business thinking across multiple ventures.
- Zero Corporate Theatre: Less process for the sake of process, more intelligent movement.
- High Leverage Work: Strong product decisions here affect entire operating companies.
How to Apply (The “Show Us Your Judgment” Test)
Skip the formal cover letter. Instead, send us your CV and:
- One product, service, or platform you believe solves the right problem exceptionally well, and why.
- One example of a business problem you helped shape into a product opportunity.