Head of Mobile

• Define and own the Mobile/Social product vision, strategy and roadmap, aligned to company OKRs; prioritise for customer impact and commercial outcomes.
• Own the P&L levers for Mobile/Social (acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, monetisation) and partner with Finance to forecast, scenario-plan and track ROI.
• Champion in-trip social experiences (community, discovery, messaging, activities) that build network effects and meaningful connections between travellers.
• Elevate app quality and performance: crash-free sessions, app start time, ANR rate, bundle size, offline resilience, accessibility and privacy by design.
• Partner with Data/AI to apply GenAI and on-device ML (e.g., intelligent trip planning, content personalisation, relevance/ranking, safety/moderation, multilingual support).
• Ensure instrumentation, analytics and telemetry are first-class: event taxonomy, self-serve dashboards, causal inference and cohort analysis to inform decisions.
• Collaborate with Lifecycle/CRM on push, in-app messaging and notifications - contextual, timely and respectful of user preferences and local regulations.
• Own the Mobile surface of our brand: work with Design/Research on design systems, usability, and inclusive experiences for a global audience.
• Partner with Growth Marketing on ASO (App Store/Play optimisation), ratings/reviews strategy and creative experimentation.
• Communicate clearly and often-from PRDs and decision memos to ELT-ready updates; simplify complexity and create alignment across stakeholders.

• Lead a high-performing Mobile/Social team-set clear goals, establish operating rituals, coach managers/ICs, and hire for excellence and diversity of thought.
• Encourage a collaborative, innovative, data-driven culture focused on continuous improvement and achieving goals.
• Effectively execute any people manager activities, including Recruitment, Performance, Development & Reward initiatives
• Inspire and guide the team to achieve their professional goals, creating a sense of purpose and pride in their work
• Be a responsible advocate for the team, ensuring their voices are heard, and their contributions are recognised and rewarded.

• Visionary yet hands-on product leader who can articulate a compelling strategy and translate it into shipped value at pace.
• Deep understanding of Mobile growth loops, network effects, and what makes travellers choose and stay loyal to one app over another.
• Mastery of experimentation and product analytics (hypothesis design, power, guardrails, causal methods) and the judgment to know when to test vs. ship.
• Strong product sense and UX craft for mobile; familiarity with platform conventions and inclusive design.
• Comfortable working at the intersection of AI and product, framing problems where GenAI/ML truly add value - and setting the right safety and quality bars.
• Excellent communicator and storyteller; able to align executives and energise teams.

• 7+ years in consumer product management with significant impact on iOS/Android apps
• 4+ years leading managers/teams.
• Proven track record scaling mobile products through activation, engagement and retention, not just feature shipping.
• Experience owning outcomes for a product line or 'P&L levers' and partnering with Finance on forecasting and ROI.
• Demonstrated leadership of experimentation programmes and data-driven decision-making.
• Fluency with modern mobile analytics and tooling (e.g., Firebase/GA4, Amplitude/Mixpanel, feature-flag/experimentation platforms).
• Working knowledge of the mobile stack and delivery practices (Swift/Kotlin fundamentals, CI/CD, crash/ANR monitoring), enabling strong partnership with Engineering.

• Experience applying GenAI/LLMs in mobile contexts (e.g., content generation/summarisation, conversational assistance, semantic search, safety/moderation).
• Background in marketplaces, travel/OTA, social or community products.
• App Store/Play ASO experience and ratings/reviews strategy.
• Exposure to privacy-centric measurement (ATT, SKAdNetwork) and international data/privacy regulations.
• Entrepreneurial or 0→1 product experience.

• Competitive salary & benefits
• Enhanced annual leave plus 3 Wellbeing Days per year
• Paid family leave (maternity, paternity, surrogacy & adoption)
• Agile working (plus a Working from Abroad Policy!)
• Support for your ongoing growth & development
• Inclusive people policies (sickness, menopause, compassionate and fertility leave)
• A chance to give back to your local community with 5 paid volunteering days

• Grow others - We fundamentally believe that investing in growing others benefits everyone, whether it's helping them develop hard or soft skills. We want learning and growing to be part of our DNA to help makes us a better team, together.
• Master it - We are obsessed with our area of expertise and enjoy developing our skills. We rarely take things at face value; we investigate, interrogate, and always look for 'the why,' and wherever possible, we use data to find the best solution.
• Collaborate - We are in it together, for the tough stuff and the celebrations too. To achieve the best results, we need expertise from all areas of the organisation, and we wholeheartedly welcome diverse thinking.
• Adapt - We work fluidly, adapting to new information and the evolving environment while staying committed to our goals. Innovation and experimentation fuel our projects and we're never afraid to pivot.
• Deliver - Our focus is always on the end result; we value outcomes over activity. We collaborate to deliver work at speed without dropping any of our other behaviours.

Hostelworld