Director, Product; Cast 12-month FTC Remote or London Based arrow_forward

Built for sport, Cortex Cortex is an industry leader in LED Perimeter software. Cast is deployed in over 180 stadiums worldwide across the world and powers the perimeter, mid tier, and Big Screen with rock solid reliability. Cast is a critical component of the match day experience and commercial activation.

We are seeking a passionate and hands-on Director, Product to drive the Cast product forward to continue to capitalise on emerging trends in the industry, such as virtual LED and keep Cast at the forefront of the market.

As a Director, Product for Cortex Cast you will lead the Cortex Cast team shaping the future of the product, as well as the day to day tasks in a fast moving and growing product business. This role requires a unique blend of strategic thinking, leadership skills, technical know how and business acumen.

Cortex is a new brand with an exciting future, but built upon a 9 year legacy of working with major global sports rights holders. This is a great opportunity for an emerging and ambitious person to take this strong foundation and drive growth of a brand with a new vision, and in turn supercharge their career in the sports, media and technology industry.

Key Responsibilities

This is a hands-on role working with a full stack cross functional team. You will be responsible for defining the product vision, strategy, and roadmap, translating business and customer needs into actionable development requirements, and guiding the development team to continue to deliver a best-in-class product. You will at times also be customer facing - supporting on demos and pitches for larger contracts.

• Product Vision & Strategy: Define, articulate, and champion the product vision and strategic roadmap for the Cast software
• Backlog Management: Create, maintain, prioritise, and refine the product backlog, ensuring it is transparent, visible, and understood by the development team and wider stakeholders. This includes writing clear user stories as well as defining acceptance criteria.
• Agile Development: Work closely with the dedicated development team, participating actively in all ceremonies and providing clear direction and timely decisions. You will also lead our quarterly Product Increment planning - following the SAFe framework
• Market & User Understanding: Develop a deep understanding of the live sports and event market, LED display technology, advertising playout requirements, user workflows (operators, content managers, rights holders), commercial and competitor landscape.
• Integration Awareness: Understand and factor in the integration requirements and dependencies with other Cortex products such as Asset Allocator as well as into the wider venue ecosystem
• Release Planning: Plan and manage product releases, coordinating with the development, QA, and marketing teams to ensure impactful and successful launches.
• Product Performance: Define key success metrics and monitor product performance, customer feedback, and support on the Customer Success team on issues
  

Key Candidate Requirements

• Experience in the sports technology, live events, broadcast media, or digital advertising industries.
• Knowledge of LED display systems, video / big screen playout software, or OOH digital signage
• Familiarity with stadium operations and workflows.
• Experience working with products that operate in real-time, live, mission-critical environments.
• A Technical background or understanding of the software development lifecycle.
  

Measures of Success

• NPS over 30
• Product shipping consistently
• Low volume of issues raised by customers

Cortex offers a friendly and creative environment in our London office base with the flexibility to also work from home.

• Team - A "one team" approach means we work collaboratively across departments and with our clients and partners, sharing and developing knowledge and skill sets.
  
• Environment - Dedicated to providing the best working environments for staff. Flexible work hours, hybrid working, recently renovated offices and support in setting up at home spaces.
  
• Inclusivity - Cortex values diversity as an equal opportunity employer and doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability status.
  
• Progression - Learning, development and career progression are encouraged and facilitated at Cortex, with all roles supplemented with relevant training courses, conferences and internal workshops.
  
• Connection - Cortex's expertise and industry connections are unrivalled; senior leaders come from backgrounds in some of the biggest names in sport from Opta to IMG.
  
• Sport - Being a sports fan is not essential to succeeding at Cortex, but you will be offered the opportunity to experience some of the biggest sporting events in the global calendar.

About Cortex

The Cortex story began in 2015 when CEO Aidan met CTO Ciaran in the innovation laboratories of a university campus outside the youthful, tech-savvy city of Brighton, United Kingdom. Together with the start-up development team, they began to build a solution to a market problem, building technology to create more connected digital ecosystems.

After 9 years developing the product suite in direct partnership with customers, Cortex was launched in 2024 to better serve the digitally diverse sports industry as a quick-to-deploy SaaS platform for data and revenue driven sports marketing.

Cortex products are used by multiple top tier sports organisations and clubs including; Arsenal FC, Formula 1, ECB, the Hundred, Euroleague Basketball, URC, Premiership Rugby, RL Commercial, SA20 and SportFive and well as leading solutions agencies like UNRVLD, Strut Digital, Playfly and Skylark Creative.

Up for the challenge?

This is a rare opportunity to be part of a fast-growing start-up business offering a lot of progression potential, opportunity and personal growth.

Send your CV and something that shows why you're the perfect person for the job! This can be anything; a supporting email, a video or perhaps a case study of previous work the team wants to find out more about you.