Product Manager in Farnborough

About The Role

We’re looking for a Product Manager to join our team at iRock School of Music in our first dedicated product role.

This is a standalone role with real ownership. You’ll shape the vision and direction of our technology products - making sure that what we build genuinely serves our children, parents, schools and teams, and moves our business forward.

You’ll be responsible for the “what” and the “why” of our technology: owning our core customer journey, translating business needs into a clear and prioritised product roadmap, and functionally designing the products and features that solve real problems. You’ll work hand in hand with our technology team, who own the “how” - the engineering, architecture and delivery - and report into the Senior Leadership Team, who you’ll work with closely to align the roadmap to business priorities.

You’ll be working on real-world systems used by tens of thousands of users every week, with the opportunity to create our product approach, shape the future of our platforms and make a meaningful impact across the organisation.

Salary: Competitive - Dependant on Experience

Bonus: Annual Bonus linked to both Company and Individual Performance

Holiday:27 days, plus bank holidays

Contract: Full-time (35 hours per Week), permanent. We are open to discussing a 4-day week for the right candidate.

Location:Hybrid/Remote options with regular visits to Farnborough HQ

About the Role

This is iRock’s first dedicated Product Manager role. It is a standalone position with support from the Senior Leadership Team and close partnership with our technology team, but it will require someone who is comfortable taking responsibility, bringing structure and building product ways of working as the business grows.

You will not be joining a large product function with established processes already in place. You will be the person helping us build those rhythms, clarify how product decisions are made, and create a roadmap that the whole business can understand and trust.

This role would suit someone who is excited by the chance to create as well as manage. There is not currently a separate Product Designer in the business, so you will lead the functional product design and user journey thinking, working closely with stakeholders, users and the technology team to shape practical, feasible and valuable solutions.

What You’ll Be Doing

Customer Journey & Product Strategy

• Map and own our core customer journey, from awareness through to advocacy
• Identify the core technology needs at each stage and use the journey to prioritise what we build
• Own a clear, prioritised product roadmap driven by genuine business need, not reactive requests
• Create and maintain clear product ways of working in a standalone role, including prioritisation rhythms, decision‑making routes and stakeholder communication
• Make evidence‑based prioritisation calls that balance value demonstration, retention, growth and efficiency
• Act as the voice of the customer - children, parents, schools and internal teams - in every product decision

Product Design & Definition

• Lead the functional design of products and features - the experience, flows, logic and outcomes
• Own the product design thinking where there is no separate Product Designer, using customer insight, stakeholder input and practical testing to shape the right solution
• Translate business problems into clear requirements, specifications, user stories and acceptance criteria
• Define what success looks like up front, with measurable outcomes for every product and feature
• Help rationalise existing tools and systems into a coherent product ecosystem

Impact & Outcomes

• Track adoption, engagement and impact after launch, and iterate based on the data
• Be accountable for whether the products we ship genuinely move the needle for the business and our customers
• Report regularly on product performance and impact, providing actionable insight to the Senior Leadership Team

Product & Platform Development

• Work closely with the Senior Leadership Team to translate business priorities into the product roadmap
• Ensure product development aligns with organisational priorities (quality, retention, growth)
• Help shape the direction of our core platforms, including:
  • Lesson Manager (field delivery tool)
  • Customer‑facing platforms
  • Internal operational systems

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Partner closely with the technology team, with a clean split of ownership
• Work confidently as the first dedicated product role in the business, bringing structure without relying on an existing product team around you
• Work with Education, Operations, Customer Experience, Marketing and other teams to understand their needs and bring them on the journey
• Act as the bridge between the business and the engineering team, ensuring alignment and clarity in both directions
• Help build a culture of product thinking across the business - outcomes over output

How This Role Works with Technology

This is a standalone Product Manager role reporting into the Senior Leadership Team and working closely with our technology team. To keep ownership clear and avoid overlap, responsibilities are deliberately split:

• Product Manager owns the “what” and “why” - the customer journey, product vision and roadmap, prioritisation, functional design, and accountability for impact
• The technology team owns the “how” - technical architecture, engineering, build quality and delivery

You set the direction, the design intent and the product outcomes; they build it brilliantly. You’ll need enough technical fluency to design feasible products and collaborate credibly with the engineering team - but you won’t need to own the architecture yourself.

What We Offer

• A competitive salary
• Openness to a 4-day week for the right candidate
• 27 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Hybrid/Remote options with regular HQ collaboration
• Enhanced sickness, maternity and paternity pay
• Medicash plan to support your health and well‑being
• The opportunity to be our first dedicated Product Manager and help shape a growing product function from the ground up

What We’re Looking For

You’ll be designing products for a modern, full‑stack platform that supports both internal operations and customer‑facing products - a Ruby on Rails backend, a GraphQL API powering web and mobile, and a React Native mobile app, all on cloud‑based infrastructure. You won’t need to be hands‑on with this stack, but a working understanding of how it fits together will help you design feasible products and collaborate well with the engineering team. You should also be comfortable working without a separate Product Designer and confident turning real business problems into clear, usable product solutions.

Essential

• Experience in a product role (Product Manager, Product Owner, or similar), owning or contributing to a product roadmap
• A track record of mapping customer journeys and translating business needs into clear requirements and functional designs
• Confidence operating in a standalone product role, creating structure and product discipline where processes are still developing
• Experience delivering products or features with measurable impact
• Strong commercial judgement - able to prioritise effectively and connect product decisions to business outcomes
• Enough technical fluency to design feasible products and work effectively with an engineering team, without owning the architecture
• Highly organised, with strong prioritisation and decision‑making skills
• Confident communicator, able to work effectively across technical and non‑technical teams

Desirable

• Experience in a scaling, product‑led, multi‑site or field‑based organisation
• Experience working across both customer‑facing and internal/operational products
• Familiarity with rationalising a landscape of third‑party tools into a coherent ecosystem
• Interest in education, music and/or people‑led, mission‑driven organisations

Recruitment Statement

This role requires the applicant to be a UK national or be resident in the UK with a right to work visa already in place. iRock embraces diversity and equal opportunity. This advert is not intended to discriminate on the grounds of a person's gender, marital status, race, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation. We are committed to fair treatment; therefore, every candidate will be assessed only in accordance with their merits, qualifications, and ability to perform the duties of the job.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. Due to the nature of the position, any offer of employment for this role will be subject to a satisfactory Enhanced DBS and other vetting checks and is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. It is an offence to apply for this role if you are barred from working in a regulated activity. Ex‑offenders with spent conviction will be considered on an individual basis and the nature of their offence will be taken into account in the recruitment decision.

Throughout the recruitment process, iRock collects and processes a range of personal data relating to job applicants. We are transparent about how this data is collected, used, and stored and are committed to compliance with data protection obligations.

For more details on our recruitment policies, visit iRock Recruitment Policy.

About Us

Founded in 2016 by father‑and‑son team John and Josh Franklin, iRock School of Music was built on a simple belief: music has the power to unlock confidence, creativity, and potential in every child. What began in a garden shed has grown into an award‑winning organisation, recognised for bringing exciting rock and pop band experiences to thousands of children in hundreds of primary schools across the UK.

At iRock, we do more than teach music, we create experiences that leave a lasting impact. Every week, tens of thousands of children take part in our energetic band sessions, developing teamwork, resilience, and self‑belief alongside their musical skills.

Our culture is at the heart of everything we do: fun, honest, supportive, and inspiring. We value ownership, innovation, and doing things properly, and we’re proud to be an award‑winning team that inspires both the children we teach and the people who work with us.

As part of our Office Team, you’ll play a vital role in supporting our mission. Helping to create the systems, processes, and experiences that enable our Band Coaches and schools to deliver exceptional opportunities for children across the UK. Your work behind the scenes will have a direct impact on the moments that inspire confidence, creativity, and lasting memories for the children we reach every week.