6degrees - Director - Products

Introduction :

6degrees is your connected phonebook in the cloud. It gives you automatic updates when friends change contact details and also lets you find people on friends' phones, with their permission, and get introduced through them. 6degrees aggregates your connections from across social networks, and is a one-stop shop for your connections in your phone. 6degrees is funded by the Singapore government and finished in the global top 10 at Seedstars World in Geneva. 6degrees has been chosen by India's 2nd-largest smartphone maker Lava as the default, native phonebook on some of their phones going forward - the first time a startup has penetrated this deep into the smartphone architecture.

Our Vision :

We started 6degrees because we feel that the phonebook is our original social network containing our entire universe of relationships, and creating a private, trust-based network of phonebooks is valuable to people. 6degrees has the power to be a unified, scalable identity-marker for smartphone users across social platforms, which has massive applications in mobile commerce and services. We're looking for people who believe in our concept, and want to work with us to create this value deep in people's everyday lives. That's our goal.

Our Culture :

A lot of our success so far should be attributed to our culture, which focuses on freedom, innovation and problem-solving above other things. Our team members are our friends, not employees. We've always felt that in a startup, collaborative work skills and a cheerful attitude are most important. We have been fortunate to put together a crack team of young engineers with outstanding minds who love computers and technology, and have a voracious appetite for thinking about solutions to problems.

Job Description :

Director, Products

We are currently looking for a Director, Products who can join our team in Bangalore.

A core part of the challenge in building a product like 6degrees is to combine utility with simplicity, functionality with aesthetics, and robust technology with good design. The role of the Director, Products is to achieve this balance between the various aspects of the product.

- The Director, Products will work closely with the founders of the company, and make critical product decisions that will often come to define the company and its future direction.

- The role involves gaining a deep understanding of smartphone users in the relevant markets, and using the learnings to make high-level strategic as well as ground-level detailed decisions.

- The role will involve making choices between various features inside the product at various points of time, and in overseeing the design of those features in a manner that maximizes user delight.

- The manager will also need to evaluate the efficacy of the product decisions using clearly communicable, quantitative metrics

- Command of technology

- Deep understanding of consumer behaviour with respect to mobile technology in specific.

- Deep understanding of developed and developing markets with specific understanding of India

- Strong strategic thinker and ability to craft a vision manifest in the product roadmap

- Ability to deliver product with quality on time

- Ability to collaborate most importantly with engineering but all functions so that the roadmap is a reflection of the company's best thinking about how to serve users

- Above all, the role is to take full ownership of the performance of the product and user delight. Every user is a potential salesman of the product.

Requirements :

The role requires the following traits and characteristics.

- 10 years experience working on world class products at a world class company in an engineering and/or product management capacity

- Design; U/X experience working on a world class product, ideally in the mobile space

- Masters in computer science from a well-regarded academic institution

- Demonstrated leadership experience

- Relevant experience in India, ideally with a startup

- Strong work ethic with a large appetite/mindset for problem-solving

- Able to communicate clearly both orally and in writing, internally within the team as well as occasionally with external partners

- A good sense of humour and a calm head on the shoulders