• Location: Amsterdam-based position (you should have the right to work in the EU)
• Hours: 40 hours per week
• Start: asap but preferably no later than May 1st
• Contract duration: 12-month employment contract with the possibility of extension to permanent
• Deadline to apply: March 5th

About your role

The Product Manager Audio is responsible for driving the success of the Fairphone audio category by developing a strong long-term roadmap, documenting product requirements and ensuring timely product launches. The Product Manager Audio fosters cross-functional collaboration, and timely decision-making, acting as the bridge between the front and the back end of developing products. The Product Manager guards technical excellence throughout the product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities & Objectives

Key Objectives

• Drive product success, establishing the product vision and roadmap and ensuring the successful launch and market (lifecycle) performance of Fairphone audio products by meeting customer needs, meeting quality and certification standards, and aligning with our impact goals. Ensure a tight process that ensures strong long-term roadmaps are in place and lived upon.
• Customer “loyalty”, understanding customer needs and pain points to develop products that deliver exceptional user experience and drive customer loyalty of our three core customer groups; End-users, Business IT Purchasers (B2B) and any reseller interested in this category.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration, build strong relationships and collaborate effectively with internal teams (engineering, design, marketing) and external partners (design agencies, suppliers) to achieve product goals.
• Innovation and Impact, stay ahead of industry trends, identify emerging technologies, and integrate sustainable practices into product development to maintain Fairphone's leadership in ethical audio products.
• Guard technical excellence, providing technical leadership and expertise throughout the product lifecycle, from concept to launch to end of life, to ensure the delivery of high-quality, reliable, and sustainable audio products.

Your Key Responsibilities

Requirements management, validation and Lifecycle Improvements:

• Lead the accurate and timely collection, ‘storage’ and analysis of product requirements (i.e. partners, customers feedback, other departments, market compliance, sustainability, etc).
• Decide what is the optimal balance between UX, business and technical feasibility.
• Work with QA leads in the right requirement validation strategy for every product.
• Support the product lifecycle forum translating insights from our customers (eg. AS, CS, CX…) into new requirements that drive user satisfaction, triggering the necessary engineering changes.
• Provide guidance and expertise on technical aspects of the products for other teams and lead the communication to the Engineering Team when it comes to the implementation of product requirements, to guard technical ambition in development and quality delivery in mass production.

Product Planning & Roadmap:

• Own the audio products category roadmap. Define and maintain a strategic product roadmap for audio products, ensuring alignment with market trends, and internal capacity and budget.
• Provide support to the OS Customer Feature, UX and apps Product Manager in defining the vision and roadmap of its own SW products (i.e. Fairbuds app).
• Scout for new technologies that are interesting for our HW and SW roadmaps. Do technical feasibility and benchmark studies against other products, maintaining our industry knowledge and our competitive edge.
• Support the development and maintenance of strong relationships with selected technology partners and maintain a ‘Technology Roadmap’ with upcoming components and technologies for integration into Fairphone products.

Give direction to Product Development:

• Lead / shepherd your products development across the NPI framework and bridge between disciplines to accelerate/smoothen decision-making.
• Support product development by taking on key deliverables within the overall NPI framework.
• Support the development teams to raise and substantiate product development risks and investigate the best mitigation strategies.

Your Skills & Experience

• You have a minimum of 5 years experience in product management in the consumer electronics industry and audio products, including strategic product planning and roadmap development, customer needs analysis and market research.
• You have a strong understanding of audio product technologies, components, and architecture and have worked in a multinational/multicultural set up across different time zones.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Product, Electronic or Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a closely related technical field.
• Strong business acumen, with the ability to understand market dynamics, product benchmarking, financial KPIs, and business models to drive product performance and strategic growth.
• Deep product and technical knowledge, enabling easy engagement with engineering teams and making informed decisions throughout the product lifecycle.
• Strategic and critical thinking skills, being able to see the bigger picture while also evaluating complex challenges with a structured, solution-oriented mindset.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, being able to turn ambiguity into clarity and deliver practical solutions.
• Exceptional time and work management, with the ability to prioritize dynamically and drive progress across multiple priorities.
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills in English, clear and concise communication, especially in writing, to articulate roadmaps, product requirements, and decisions effectively.
• Confident presentation skills, enabling you to influence and align stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Strong interpersonal skills, building trusted relationships across teams and fostering a collaborative working environment.
• Customer and partner relationship experience, maintaining positive, professional interactions with external stakeholders to align product development with market needs.
• A systemic mindset, understanding how product decisions impact other teams.
• Familiarity with quality assurance processes.
• Knowledge of circular electronics and sustainable practices.
• Preferably, you are familiar with working with macOS, Google Workspace, Jira and other tools.

What Fairphone can offer you?

• The opportunity to create an impact on the electronics industry around the world.
• A diverse work environment full of international, passionate, warm-hearted team members.
• 25 paid holidays per year (based on a full-time contract) next to the other public holidays in the Netherlands. You’ll also get a day off on your birthday! Additionally, the longer you stay, the more holidays you get!
• Daily, healthy lunch, organic FairChain coffee, and many more tasty things.
• You will join Fairphone’s collective pension scheme, and we will contribute to building your pension.
• You will receive a MacBook, Fairbuds, and a Fairphone as working devices.
• Hybrid working model: We are remote-friendly and also contribute up to €250 toward your home office set-up.
• Public transport allowance – we fully cover your 2nd-class commute from your home to the office
• Bike allowance – We support you with a bike purchase of up to €300, and you’ll also have a yearly repair budget of up to €100! We also cover 23 cents per km for your biking distance from home to the office (or train station) and back!
• Grow with us! We encourage you to develop at Fairphone. That’s why we’ll support your career goals with coaching (Inuka), trainings, workshops, or courses that you can join with your development budget.
• Kitchen with beautiful views to the IJ waterfront.
• There’s a gym in the building where you can build healthy habits, stay active and have fun with your colleagues, as well as a subscription to our mental & physical well-being services (Inuka & Urban Sports)