Principal Product Manager, Rides Matching

Bolt; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Wellness perks

Sabbatical

Annual company events

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Bolt is seeking a Principal Product Manager to own the transition of our matching/dispatching stack. You will define the roadmap, build a cross-functional pod of engineers, data scientists, and specialists, and be accountable for the performance and delivery of the next generation.

This is a deeply technical role that requires clear, precise communication with senior stakeholders. You will own the interface between matching and pricing, coordinate experiments across markets, and set the

Qualifications

• Experience shipping ML models in production systems that serve real-time allocations.
• Worked on allocation, matching, dispatch, or equivalent real-time systems in a two-sided marketplace or logistics platform.
• Experience migrating live production systems while maintaining stability.
• Coordinated cross-functional product pods and negotiated interface contracts.
• Strong written communication for strategy documents, specs and experiment reviews.

Responsibilities

• Define the product strategy and roadmap for the dispatching engine.
• Coordinate the productionisation of ML/RL models across markets.
• Own and improve the performance of the existing matching stack during transition.
• Define the signal contract between matching and pricing.
• Design experiments and translate algorithmic trade-offs for stakeholders.
• Set priorities within a cross-functional pod and own matching KPIs.

Skills

ML in production

Real-time allocation

Two-sided marketplace

Cross-functional leadership

Job description

About Bolt

Bolt is shaping a future where cities are built for people, not cars. What started as an ambitious project of a 19-year-old in 2013 has grown into a global mobility platform used by more than 200 million customers and 4.5 million driver and courier partners across 50 countries.

Bolt is shaping a future where cities are built for people, not cars. What started as an ambitious project of a 19-year-old in 2013 has grown into a global mobility platform used by more than 200 million customers and 4.5 million driver and courier partners across 50 countries. From ride-hailing and food delivery to scooters, e-bikes, and car-sharing, Bolt helps people move through cities every day. Small, autonomous teams drive this work, combining the speed and ownership of a startup with the scale of a global technology company backed by more than €1bn in funding. And we\'re just getting started.

Why join Bolt?

• Build the future of mobility and help transform how people live and move in cities.
• Tackle challenges at scale that span technology, operations, regulation, and growth.
• Take real ownership early. Small, lean teams mean your decisions matter from day one, and you\'ll learn fast alongside some of the best people in the industry.
• Join one of Europe\'s leading technology companies, backed by world-class investors including Sequoia.

About The Role

At Bolt, every ride order flows through our matching system. The quality of each allocation shapes platform-wide outcomes, affecting how quickly riders are picked up, how efficiently drivers earn, and how well we manage supply and demand across dozens of markets. We are evolving our matching stack from a heuristic-based dispatch system toward a context-aware, probability-based allocation engine powered by machine learning and reinforcement learning.

As Principal Product Manager, you will own this transition end to end. You will define the roadmap, build a cross-functional pod of engineers, data scientists, and specialists, and be accountable for both the performance of the existing system and the delivery of the next generation. This is a deeply technical role that also requires clear, precise communication with senior stakeholders. You will own the interface between matching and pricing, coordinate experiment rollout across markets, and set the direction for how Bolt allocates supply at scale.

Main Tasks And Responsibilities

• Define the product strategy and roadmap for the dispatching engine, sequencing foundational ML/RL investments alongside near-term improvements to queue ranking, dispatch strategy, and retry governance.
• Coordinate the productionisation of machine learning and reinforcement learning models, from offline training through shadow mode, A/B testing, incremental rollout, and live monitoring across multiple markets.
• Own and improve the performance of the existing matching stack while the new engine is being built, maintaining stability and delivering incremental efficiency gains.
• Define and maintain the signal contract between matching and pricing, ensuring matching delivers reliable, low-latency completion probability and supply density signals.
• Design experiments, evaluate results, and translate complex algorithmic trade-offs into clear recommendations for senior stakeholders and cross-functional peers.
• Set priorities and resolve trade-offs within a cross-functional pod spanning product, engineering, data science, and specialist roles, acting as the accountable owner for matching KPIs.

About You

• You have experience shipping machine learning models into production systems that serve real-time allocations at scale, including ownership of the full lifecycle from feature engineering and training through shadow deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• You have worked on allocation, matching, dispatch, or equivalent real-time systems in a two-sided marketplace, logistics platform, or high-throughput environment, with a strong grasp of supply-demand dynamics and global versus local optimisation trade-offs.
• You have navigated the complexity of maintaining a live production system while simultaneously building its replacement, with a track record of keeping current performance stable through a migration.
• You have coordinated cross-functional product pods and have experience working across organisational boundaries, including negotiating interface contracts and mutual accountability with adjacent teams such as pricing or economics.
• You can move fluently between detailed statistical evaluation and clear stakeholder communication, and you produce high-quality written deliverables, including strategy documents, technical specifications, and experiment reviews.
• You have direct exposure to reinforcement learning in production, or have worked with teams that deployed RL systems, with a solid grasp of reward design, exploration-exploitation trade-offs, and the gap between simulation and live environments.

Why You’ll Love It Here

• Accelerate your professional growth with unique career opportunities.
• Enjoy a rewarding salary and stock options, knowing that as Bolt succeeds, so do you.
• Take care of your physical and mental health with our wellness perks.
• Celebrate 5 years at Bolt with a 1-month paid sabbatical to recharge.
• Connect with colleagues at annual company events and smaller team gatherings.
• Balance flexibility and in-person collaboration with our hybrid model, including at least 12 monthly in-office days.

Some perks may differ depending on your location and role.

At Bolt, using AI daily is a baseline expectation for everyone. If there\'s a faster, smarter way to do your work, we expect you to find it. You\'re still responsible for the output, so the standard stays high when using AI tools.

Experience is great, but what we really look for is drive, intelligence, and integrity. So even if you don\'t tick every box, please consider applying!

Everyone is welcome

Bolt is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, colour, nationality, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability.

We welcome applications from all backgrounds and are happy to make reasonable accommodations throughout our hiring process. If you require any adjustments, please let us know.