Hiring for a senior product or delivery role?
Here is the short version, written for the person who has fifteen CVs open and four minutes each. What I'm open to, what I've actually run, and what the first ninety days would look like.
- Head of Product
- Head of Delivery
- Senior Product Manager
- Lead / Senior Product Owner
- Product Owner
- Product consultant
What I have actually run
Not aspirations. Things with dates attached, from the last six years.
Regulated delivery, not just delivery
Online casino platforms shipped against licensing, security and regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions, with payment providers, game suppliers and affiliate partners integrated to plan. I know what compliance costs a roadmap and when to pay it.
Cross-functional leadership
I've led a distributed publishing team across North and Latin America, and I currently align SEO, engineering, QA and affiliate partners on a single roadmap. Leadership here means holding the trade-offs, not chairing the meeting.
Commercial fluency
Affiliate and iGaming products where the number moves daily. Funnels, conversion, monetisation and experiment design are part of the product conversation for me, not a marketing hand-off.
Technically credible
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, WordPress, Adobe Experience Manager and manual QA, used in anger before I moved into product. Engineers don't have to translate for me, and acceptance criteria don't come back for rewriting.
Scale and localisation
Samsung Electronics sites across 50+ markets, and casino platforms localised across currencies, languages and regional regulation. I've seen what breaks when one process has to work everywhere.
Process that survives me
Refinement, planning, release checklists and reporting documented so the team keeps running them after I move on. A leader whose improvements leave when they do hasn't led anything.
What I'd do in the first ninety days
The honest version. No reorganisation in week two, no strategy deck before I've watched a release go out.
- Days 1-30
Listen and measure
Sit in every ceremony. Read the last quarter of tickets and the last three releases. Half an hour each with engineering, QA, design, marketing and the loudest stakeholders. Establish what the numbers currently say before anyone tells me what they mean.
- Days 31-60
Fix the cheapest expensive thing
There is always one process cost everyone has stopped noticing - a refinement that doesn't happen, a release checklist that lives in someone's head, a report written three times. Fix that first. It buys credibility for the harder changes.
- Days 61-90
Rebuild the roadmap with the team
A prioritised roadmap tied to business outcomes, with the reasoning written down so it survives the next stakeholder push. Plus a delivery forecast leadership can plan against, and the cadence that keeps it honest.
Before and after
Common starting state
- Backlog ranked by whoever asked most recently
- Sprints planned against gross capacity, then missed
- Compliance and security questions surface the week of launch
- Status reports written to reassure rather than inform
- Estimates cover the build and nothing around it
- Retro actions with no owner and no due date
Where I take it
- A ranking with written reasoning that survives pushback
- Commitments sized to measured capacity, met consistently
- Regulatory gates inside the definition of done
- One honest status, with risks named before they bite
- Estimates that include QA, rework, release and support
- Retro actions tracked like any other work item
The practical bits
Where are you based, and how do you work?
Belgrade, Serbia, on CET/CEST. Fully remote since 2024 with distributed teams, and happy to travel for kickoffs, planning sessions or quarterly on-sites.
What seniority are you targeting?
Head of Product or Head of Delivery in a mid-sized organisation, or a Senior / Lead Product Manager or Product Owner role in a larger one. I'd rather take real ownership at the right scope than a title that doesn't come with decisions.
Which domains do you know cold?
iGaming and online casino, affiliate and performance marketing, and large-scale multi-market web publishing. The delivery craft transfers anywhere; those three are where I need no ramp-up.
What languages do you work in?
English professionally, Serbian natively, elementary Russian. All of my recent work has been in English with international teams.
Are you interviewing actively?
I'm employed and not in a hurry, which means I'm selective rather than unavailable. If the role is a genuine fit I'll make time for the process quickly.
What do you want to know about the role?
Who owns the roadmap today, what the last three releases looked like, and what would have to be true in a year for the hire to be considered a success. Have those answers ready and the first call will be a good one.
Something isn't shipping. Let's find out why.
Send me three sentences about what's stuck, or take the free 30-minute call. Either way you'll get an honest read - including if the answer is that you don't need me.