Junior Product Manager (Growth & Loyalty)

Mr D, a division of takealot.com, is looking for a highly talented Junior Product Manager to join our team in Cape Town.

Think you've been challenged before? Think again!

• Scale: Show the millions of Mr D customers 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.

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This position reports to the Growth + Loyalty Product Lead. 

The Product team at Mr D is passionate about creating experiences that satisfy & delight our customers while ensuring we continuously acquire and retain customers to exceed our growth objectives. As a Junior Product Manager, you will work closely with cross-functional teams to deliver measurable gains across key business metrics by combining speed, analytical insight, and test-driven product development. You will be essential in driving growth at each stage of the product lifecycle: acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, and monetization.

Your responsibilities will include:

• User Onboarding & Activation: Design, test, and optimize user onboarding flows to ensure a seamless first-time user experience (FTUE) that drives early activation and long-term retention.
• Deeplinking & Seamless Journeys: Implement and manage deeplinking strategies (e.g., deferred deeplinking) to bridge the gap between marketing campaigns and the on-platform experience, reducing friction in the acquisition journey.
• CRM & Marketing Integration: Collaborate closely with Marketing and CRM teams to build out lifecycle campaigns, integrating product features with CRM tools to drive engagement, retention, and highly personalized user experiences.
• Data-Driven Decision-Making: Determine, implement, and test the data that needs to be gathered to inform decision-making of product requirements. Gather and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data to extract key insights that will drive product requirements and post-launch impact analysis.
• Test-Driven Development: Apply test-driven product development principles by suggesting and validating ideas to solve customer challenges in close collaboration with the design team, data + engineering team. Use data to inform A/B tests and other experiments that optimize product performance.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Work closely with UX/UI designers to define the customer experience when implementing features. Clearly communicate product requirements and ensure alignment across design and engineering.
• End-to-End Product Ownership & Agile Execution: Manage the product development lifecycle, including documentation, implementation, testing, launch, and monitoring success metrics. Write clear, actionable JIRA tickets (epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria). Facilitate backlog grooming, run sizing, and lead sprint planning sessions, ensuring that product goals align with the broader growth strategy.
• Stakeholder Management: Manage relationships with stakeholders by identifying their needs, pain points, and objectives related to specific projects. Obtain senior stakeholder buy-in for product requirements and maintain clear and consistent communication on project status.
• Innovation and Growth Balance: Contribute to balancing growth optimization with product innovation to ensure long-term success. Recognize when to drive towards incremental improvements (quick wins and short time to market) and when to aim for innovative leaps to align the product strategy and meet business targets and objectives.
• Problem Solving and Taking Initiative: Identify critical problems proactively and drive solutions, demonstrating a deep understanding of the product vision and strategy. Contribute to the product roadmap and help shape functional requirements by understanding the system architecture.
• Quality Assurance: Collaborate with QA teams to clarify project requirements and create acceptance criteria. Perform pre-launch user acceptance testing (UAT) to ensure the product meets the defined standards and specifications.
• Knowledge sharing: Document and share knowledge and learnings of growth-centric best practices to upskill and foster a company culture of attaining a growth mindset, sharing with the relevant teams.

Attributes required:

• A growth-centric mindset with a strong understanding of acquisition and retention loops.
• Experience with agile product management tools (e.g., JIRA, Confluence) and a solid understanding of agile software development methodologies.
• Background or strong operational understanding of CRM platforms (e.g., Braze, Salesforce) and marketing technologies.
• Familiarity with mobile attribution and deeplinking mechanics (e.g., AppsFlyer, Adjust,  Branch).
• Excellent written and verbal skills.
• Experience presenting to stakeholders.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Experience working with data analytics tools (e.g., Excel, SQL).
• Experience working with wireframing tools is preferable.

The skills we need:

• Ability to effectively translate product strategy into technical requirements, including sizing effort and managing engineering bandwidth during planning sessions.
• Ability to map out complex user journeys, particularly focusing on frictionless onboarding and lifecycle marketing.
• Strong understanding of marketing funnels and how product intersects with user acquisition and CRM campaigns.
• Able to prioritise initiatives that include multiple stakeholders and communicate the why, what and when effectively.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, sometimes less-structured and constantly changing environment.
• Able to take initiative in ambiguous situations by identifying critical problems and driving solutions with the relevant stakeholders and team.
• Passion for data and is able to make data-driven decisions and communicate insights.
• Solution-oriented, accountable and highly self-motivated with a robust can-do attitude.
• Strong sense of ownership and determination to get things done (not scared to get hands dirty).
• Strong organisational skills & attention to detail.
• Great people skills (Proficiency to work closely and collaboratively with multiple departments, marketing teams, and executives, and in cross-functional teams).
• Excellent problem-solving skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Eagerness to experiment, learn, and grow.

Qualifications and experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree or Advanced Diploma in a related field with at least 3 years of business analysis experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities) OR 1 year of product management experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities).
• If the degree/diploma qualification requirement isn’t met, at least 6 years of business analysis experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities) OR 4 years of product management experience or exposure (through projects or responsibilities).
• Bonus: Previous experience working within a marketing, CRM, or growth-focused product team, with direct exposure to user onboarding optimization, deeplinking execution, and running agile ceremonies.

Let's talk about life @ Mr D:

• The power is in your hands: We offer a market-related, Total Remuneration Package which 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? We offer 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? Upskill with free access to courses on MyAcademy, Udacity, Coursera, and more.
• Good times: Get to know the other extraordinary minds in the takealot group during regular social events and out-of-office activities (think hikes, think mini golf, think good times).
• 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, off the latest tech.
• Help when you need it most: Confidential counselling, legal support and financial guidance, for free, anytime, anywhere.
• Tech stack (for days): Angular, SvelteKit, TypeScript, Node.js, Python, AWS, Docker, GitHub Actions, and all things AI-assisted development. If you build it, they will come.
• 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!!

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