Technical Product & Project Leader

Organization: CIRCLE Women
Job Description
Title: Technical Product & Project Leader

ROLE OVERVIEW
Organization: CIRCLE Women
Job Title: Technical Product & Project Leader
Employment Type: Full-time
Location: 304 Quick Office Upper Mall Lahore
Reporting To: CEO

Circle Women is seeking a Technical Product & Project Leader to own both the product direction and the delivery engine behind the digital initiatives. This is a hybrid role: part product owner, part project driver — the person who defines what gets built and also makes sure it ships on time. You will serve as the bridge between strategic vision and operational execution, working across technology, business, and leadership.
As Circle expands its digital footprint and moves into a multi-country operating structure, this role is central to ensuring that technology, product thinking, and disciplined delivery are embedded into how the organization runs.

ABOUT CIRCLE WOMEN
Circle Women is dedicated to empowering women through community, opportunity, and meaningful programming. As the organization grows its digital footprint and operational capabilities, this role is central to ensuring that technology and product thinking are embedded into everything we do.

AUTHORITY & DECISION RIGHTS
This role owns the product roadmap and carries dotted-line authority over project contributors for the duration of active initiatives — setting deadlines, sequencing, and quality bar for delivery work, even where contributors report administratively elsewhere. Escalations on budget, hiring, or strategic direction go to the CEO. This is named explicitly because, without it, product and delivery ownership collapses into requesting rather than driving.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Product Ownership & Development
● Define, own, and execute the product roadmap for the digital platforms and services.
● Gather and document detailed business requirements (BRDs, FRDs, user stories) from internal stakeholders.
● Oversee the full development lifecycle — from requirements and design through testing and deployment.
● Use data-driven insights to continuously refine and improve product features and user experience.
Coordination
● Own the project plan, timeline, and milestone tracking across development, design, and operations.
● Run Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, stand-ups, retrospectives) and keep the delivery backlog current.
● Lead integration of third-party tools, APIs, and platforms, and act as primary liaison with technology vendors.
● Identify dependencies and blockers early, and resolve or escalate before they cause delay.
● Maintain project and technical documentation, including decisions log and post-launch reviews.
Leadership
● Build, lead, and mentor a cross-functional team of developers, designers, analysts, and operations staff.
● Set delivery standards and hold contributors accountable to deadlines and quality, within the authority defined above.
● Make trade-off calls — scope vs. timeline vs. resource — and own the outcome of those calls.
● Conduct one-on-ones, performance reviews, and recruit/onboard talent aligned to the mission.
● Coach team members through ambiguity and resolve conflicts rather than escalating every issue upward.
Stakeholder Management
● Translate leadership's business asks into product and project plans the team can execute.
● Deliver weekly/monthly progress reporting to leadership and governance in plain, decision-ready language.
● Manage expectations upward (what's slipping and why) and downward (what's being asked of the team) simultaneously.
● Support leadership in evaluating partnerships, integrations, and new initiatives from a business and technical lens.
Business Understanding & Strategy
● Develop a thorough understanding of the organisation's business model, goals, revenue streams, and operational landscape.
● Conduct market research and competitive analysis to inform product direction.
● Identify gaps, inefficiencies, and growth opportunities through structured business analysis.

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES
● Product & Technical Fluency — Can define a roadmap, write BRDs/FRDs, and hold a credible technical conversation with developers on architecture, APIs, and integrations.
● Delivery Discipline — Runs Agile/Scrum rigorously; converts ambiguity into a sequenced plan with milestones, owners, and dates.
● Business & Commercial Acumen — Understands revenue drivers and unit economics well enough to prioritise by business value, not just technical elegance.
● Data-Informed Decision Making — Uses metrics and user insight to justify product and delivery calls rather than intuition alone.
● Vendor & Integration Management — Manages external technology partners end-to-end — selection, negotiation, delivery accountability.

LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES
● Ownership & Accountability — Treats outcomes as personally owned, including failures; doesn't diffuse responsibility across the team.
● Influencing Without Full Authority — Drives contributors who report elsewhere through clarity and credibility, not hierarchy.
● Team Building & Mentorship — Hires, develops, and retains talent; gives direct feedback without damaging trust.
● Strategic Judgment — Distinguishes what matters now from what can wait; resists busywork disguised as progress.
● Resilience in Ambiguity — Builds structure in the absence of a finished playbook; comfortable being the first process the organisation has had in a given area.
● Executive Communication — Reports upward in a way that earns leadership's trust quickly — concise, numbers-first, no spin.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE
Required
● Platform scaling experience (core requirement): 5-8 years leading product, project, or delivery work for a digital platform that scaled — e-commerce, online marketplaces, edtech, fintech, or health-tech, any one or a mix.
● Proven track record leading and managing teams — hiring, mentoring, performance management.
● Demonstrated experience delivering complex digital products or technology projects end-to-end.
● Strong command of Agile/Scrum methodology and product/project delivery best practices.
● Demonstrated ability to understand business operations, models, and strategy — not just technology or process.
● Experience writing BRDs, FRDs, user stories, and technical/project documentation.
● Comfortable working with APIs, integrations, and cross-platform technology environments.
● Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.
● Demonstrated ability to lead without full formal authority — influencing peers and cross-functional contributors through clarity and credibility.
Preferred
● Background in e-commerce, fintech, health-tech, edtech, social impact, NGO, or membership-based organisations.
● Experience with open API ecosystems and third-party platform integrations.
● Familiarity with tools such as Jira, Confluence, Figma, or equivalent.
● Prior experience in a lean or resource-constrained team environment.
● Exposure to data analytics and using insights to drive product and delivery decisions.