Product Lead (Group Customer Experience)

Takealot.com, a leading South African online retailer, is looking for a highly talented Product Lead to join our team in South Africa.

This is a high-impact, high-ownership role suited for a product leader with strong customer empathy, analytical depth, and strategic thinking. You bring a product mindset—obsessed with solving the right problems, testing and learning quickly, and scaling what works. You lead with influence, foster a culture of collaboration and accountability, and are deeply motivated by delivering value at scale. If you’re excited to shape the future of digital commerce and our customer experiences, this is the opportunity to do it.

Think you’ve been challenged before? Think again!

• Scale: Over 6 million happy shoppers shop online on takealot.com and Mr D. Show them what you can do.
• Learn: We work with the best of the best, and then some. Code alongside industry leaders and upskill in record time. 
• Grow: Expand your career in the fast-growing Takealot Group: takealot.com and Mr D. We like to promote from within: Here’s your chance. 

Who’s who

This position reports to the Chief Product Officer (Takealot Group)

Your responsibilities will include:

• Define a compelling long-term product vision (3–5 years) and strategy for your product area, with a focus on transforming customer service across the Takealot Group (takealot.com, Mr D, Takealot Fulfilment Services). This includes developing customer self-service capabilities, enhancing customer engagement platforms (e.g., chatbots, Help centres, customer communications), and optimising our customer service support portals. Ensure alignment between business goals and customer needs while driving the end-to-end digital experience through innovation, differentiation, and the smart application of emerging technologies.
• Own and maintain an actionable product roadmap that effectively prioritises features and strategic initiatives aimed at minimising customer inquiries and delivering exceptional customer service and support.
• Lead the full product development lifecycle - from problem framing and opportunity sizing to solution design and execution. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to run discovery, define requirements, drive delivery, support experimentation and user testing, and ensure high-quality outcomes.
• Serve as the thought leader and champion of the digital customer experience. Represent your product vision to internal stakeholders and senior leadership, and ensure alignment across the Takealot Group, working toward a shared experience goal.
• Drive alignment and collaboration across disciplines, including engineering, design, analytics, marketing, and other areas. Influence related product roadmaps to ensure coherence, scalability, and a seamless experience for our customers across all domains.
• Leverage data and experimentation to continuously improve the product. Analyse performance, test hypotheses, monitor key metrics, and use customer insights to identify and deliver impactful optimisations.

We’d love to meet you if you have:

• Vision & Strategic Thinking: You’re skilled at defining a clear, ambitious product vision and translating it into a cohesive strategy across multiple teams. You know how to craft compelling narratives, strategic documents, and product requirements that align stakeholders, inform decisions, and inspire action. You are equally comfortable zooming out to shape long-term direction and diving deep into the details to ensure executional excellence.
• Product Craft & Execution: You bring extensive experience envisioning, building, and scaling customer-facing products and customer service tools - ideally in an online marketplace or e-commerce context. You have a proven track record of delivering impact through exceptional product thinking, strong execution, and a deep understanding of what it takes to ship and scale successful digital experiences.
• Customer-Obsessed Problem Solving: You lead with curiosity and empathy, constantly seeking to understand customer needs, pain points, and behaviors. You are experienced in product discovery and know how to turn insights into meaningful, innovative solutions that solve real problems while driving measurable business outcomes.
• Commercial and Market Acumen: You use data, user insights, and competitive intelligence to assess opportunities and make informed decisions. You understand how to balance customer value and commercial impact, and you prioritise work that drives both strategic growth and operational efficiency.
• Analytical Rigor: You are data-literate and insight-driven, with the ability to interpret both quantitative and qualitative signals. You define success metrics, design experiments, and track performance to inform decisions and continuously improve the product.
• Thoughtful Leadership: You lead with humility, curiosity, and conviction. You have experience mentoring and developing product talent, fostering a high-performing, customer-focused culture. You advocate for excellence, drive innovation, and inspire teams to do their best work.

 

Qualifications and experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Diploma in a related field with at least 7 years of software product management experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities) 
• If the degree/diploma qualification requirement isn’t met, at least 10 years of software product management experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities)
• Demonstrable experience working across functional teams and executive stakeholders
• Demonstrable domain experience in e-commerce/online retail and customer service support software 
• Experience owning technology products (i.e, not just operational experience)
• Experience in influencing senior leadership through data-driven insights

 

Let’s talk about life @ Takealot Group

• The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related Total Remuneration Package that allows full flexibility according to your needs. Go on, be the master of your own destiny.
• No doors: We aren’t fans of stuffy offices or siloed work environments. See someone you like? High five, collab, and make something great.
• Remote working: Love water cooler chats and working from home? Takealot.com offers a hybrid working model for the best of both worlds.
• Mentorship programme: We aren’t kidding when we say the people with the best people win. Now’s your chance to be one of the best by learning from the best.
• Naspers Tech Community & Online Learning: Share ideas and grow with global industry leaders who are all just a Slack message away. Love to learn? Up-skill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera, and more.
• Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds at takealot.com during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini-golf, think good times).
• Staff discount. Millions of products across 28 departments. What more could you ask for?
• Birthday leave: Cake Day all the way. Enjoy your day off - you deserve it. 
• Right tools, right job: Mac or Windows, two monitors or one. Whatever your preference, you’ll work on the latest tech of the latest tech.
• Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere.
• Free parking: No more 5km fun runs to your desk (unless you want to).

Like what you see? 

If you meet the above, you are an Extraordinary Mind. Apply today!!

Takealot is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Applicants from previously disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities will be given preference.