Head of AI Lab: Product & Engineering Leadership

Economist-Group-; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension plan

Private health insurance

Employee assistance program

Work From Anywhere 25 days

Generous leave

Volunteer days

Free Economist content

Job summary

The Economist Group is seeking a Head of Product & Engineering to lead the AI Lab’s product and technical work. You will own the full 0-1 journey—from deciding what to work on, to developing and validating products—setting direction, shaping roadmaps, guiding discovery, and ensuring the outputs are valuable, reliable and aligned with our heritage.

This hands-on leadership role requires building a small, cross-functional team across product, engineering and design, while collaborating with

Qualifications

• Experience leading the development of B2C digital products.
• Track record taking products from 0-1: finding valuable problems, testing assumptions, shipping quickly and learning from real users.
• Experience building AI-powered products including practical knowledge of LLM application patterns.
• A strong engineering background and the technical judgement to guide architecture and decisions.
• Proven ability to hire senior engineering talent and raise the technical bar.
• Clear communication with technical, editorial and commercial audiences.

Responsibilities

• Set the AI Lab roadmap and translate editorial goals into product directions.
• Lead multidisciplinary team across product, design and engineering.
• Be the voice of the future customer to create real value.
• Own the 0-1 process from idea to beta to production with evidence-led decisions.
• Collaborate with editorial to amplify journalism while preserving quality and independence.
• Shape the technical direction and architecture, guiding build-vs-buy decisions.
• Connect the Lab's work to platforms, data and priorities across The Economist Group.

Skills

B2C product leadership

0-1 product development

AI products

Engineering leadership

Team building

Strategic communication

Job description

The Economist Group is seeking a Head of Product & Engineering to lead the AI Lab’s product and technical work. You will own the full 0-1 journey—from deciding what to work on, to developing and validating products—setting direction, shaping roadmaps, guiding discovery, and ensuring the outputs are valuable, reliable and aligned with our heritage.

This hands-on leadership role requires building a small, cross-functional team across product, engineering and design, while collaborating with