Product Manager - AI & Transformation
HeadFirst Group
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
HeadFirst Group is seeking a Product Manager for AI & Transformation in Hoofddorp, Netherlands. The role focuses on owning a part of our platform engine, driving AI-enabled product features, and delivering rapid value across markets.
You will collaborate with the CPTO organization, balance long-term vision with quick wins, and work closely with business, strategy, and engineering teams. The position combines product leadership with AI-enabled execution.
Qualifications
- Experience in product management and AI-enabled platforms.
- Ability to work with AI-powered engineering teams.
- Familiarity with MSP, staffing, the contingent workforce, talent management, or services procurement is a plus.
Responsibilities
- Identify areas where domain expertise, technology, and AI can significantly improve service delivery.
- Get to the root of problems and build fast, AI-driven prototypes.
- Write detailed product definitions and work with AI-powered engineering teams to iterate daily.
- Define backlog, priorities, and roadmap and keep them aligned with regional needs.
- Maintain a long-term product vision and design a globally scalable platform.
Job description
Hoofddorp, North Holland, Netherlands
€5,500 - 7,000
32 - 40 hours
EN
Product Manager
Location: Within a day's travel of one of our offices: London, Amsterdam (Hoofddorp), or Brussels.
Help shape the future of work.
We are reinventing the way work is done—how organizations find talent, how people find work, and how the two come together—on a scale most companies never come close to. This is one of the most ambitious transformations in our industry, and we’re still in the early stages, so the people who join us now will help shape what it becomes.
At the heart of it all is our platform. It is not a system of record that we maintain; it is the engine that powers our entire strategy—the thing that enables us to deliver our services to clients, talent, and partners across markets, learn faster than anyone else, and turn a good idea into a globally operating business in a matter of weeks. Get the platform right, and everything else falls into place. That is the bet, and that is why this role exists.
We're looking for a Product Manager to take real ownership of a part of that engine and drive it forward. The destination is set: we have a defined strategy and a defined portfolio of services to deliver. Your job isn't to decide what business we’re in—it’s to figure out how we succeed at it. That’s where we expect ambition, innovation, and genuinely creative solutions to tough challenges. You’ll bring a strong vision for where your product should go, and the judgment to make most of the day-to-day decisions—while working closely with the Business and Strategy Offices and staying true to real regional needs. Influence, not a blank check.
We also won't pretend that the job is the same as it was three years ago. AI has transformed our profession, and we're looking for Product Managers who see that as an advantage, not a threat. You can get more out of AI tools than most people think is possible: you prototype and design in hours, not sprints; you work seamlessly with AI-powered engineering teams on daily iteration cycles; you make quick decisions, keep the feedback loop short, and turn a need into something tangible in a fraction of the time it used to take. Speed to market is a key skill here, and AI is how you achieve it.
This is a high standard—and that's by design. We want someone who has worked in or around managed services (MSP), staffing, the contingent workforce, talent management, or services procurement, who already understands where the money flows and where the friction lies—and who is eager to tackle a problem of this magnitude. You should find the ambiguity exciting rather than daunting, the scale motivating rather than intimidating, and the constraints a puzzle to solve rather than an obstacle to complain about.
If you're looking for a clearly defined path and a finalized brief, this isn't it. If you want to take a clear strategy and a real platform and make them succeed—by inventing how alongside strong partners across the business, and using AI to move faster than you thought you could—keep reading.
You’ll join the CPTO organization and work at the intersection of Product, Technology, AI, and Operations, on products that deliver our services to clients, talent, and partners worldwide.
You’ll move seamlessly between two roles that most people treat as separate jobs:
You maintain a multi-year vision for your product and keep it aligned with our strategy and service portfolio, as well as with the direction in which modern workforce and HR services are heading. You design for a coherent, global platform, not one-off features for a single market.
you write the detailed product definition, work closely with engineers every day, make trade-offs, resolve roadblocks, and lead the team to deliver a product that gets released and adopted. You dive into the details because that’s where products are made or broken — and you use AI to work through those details faster than a traditional team could.
There won't always be a clear answer, and you'll rarely have all the information. The job is to create clarity, make decisions, and keep the iteration cycle short—working in tandem with the Business and Strategy Offices rather than in isolation.
Your success isn't measured by how many requirements you wrote or features you shipped. It's measured by what changed because you were here.
Identify areas where domain expertise, technology, and AI can significantly improve how we deliver our services to clients, talent, and partners.
Get to the root of problems instead of simply accepting today's process as a given.
Turn ambiguous challenges into clear hypotheses, prototypes, and experiments—by building the first working version yourself, quickly, using AI and modern tools, when that’s the fastest way to learn.
Write a detailed product definition and work closely with AI-powered engineering teams to build, test, and iterate—on a daily basis, not quarterly.
Make pragmatic decisions about whether to build, buy, automate, redesign, or stop based on the information you have.
Take ownership of the backlog, priorities, and roadmap—and keep questioning whether they still make sense.
Take ideas from the initial prototype through production, adoption, and continuous improvement, with an unwavering focus on a short time to market.
Maintain a long-term product vision and design a coherent, globally scalable platform aligned with our strategy.
Work closely with the Business and Strategy Offices and ensure that what you build reflects actual regional needs.
Define what success looks like, measure it, and determine whether the product is delivering.
Build alignment across technology, operations, and leadership without becoming a hostage to consensus.
A high-impact product role at the heart of our transformation.
The freedom and responsibility to build, not just maintain—within a clear strategy worth supporting.
Direct access to senior leadership and the teams driving the change.
Hands‑on work with AI, automation, and modern tools, on teams designed to move quickly.
Global reach — products that influence how thousands of people and processes function across markets.
A broad playing field: your scope expands as you demonstrate impact.
An environment where initiative trumps hierarchy and execution trumps bureaucracy.
If your instinct when someone says "that won't work" is to ask "Okay—so how could we make it work?" — and then open a laptop and prototype it before the meeting is over — we should talk.
This role isn't about hiring someone who already has all the answers. It's about hiring the person who takes responsibility for finding them quickly and securing the win.
Salary that matches your experience
You will receive a salary range that matches your knowledge and experience. We reward you fairly for your commitment and development.
Vacation pay and days off
You will receive 8.33% vacation pay and are entitled to 27 vacation days per year based on full-time employment. This gives you plenty of time to recharge your batteries.
Hybrid working
We support hybrid working and apply a 60/40 split, whereby full-time employees spend three days at the office and two days working from home.
Premium‑free pension
We pay your entire pension premium. This means you accrue pension without having to contribute to it yourself. As a result, you are left with a higher net salary.
Performance bonus
Depending on your performance and that of HeadFirst Group, you may receive an annual bonus of one or two months' salary.
Monthly extras
You will receive a monthly allowance for internet, a vitality budget, a contribution towards lunch, and support in setting up your home office.
AND the possibility of adding or selling days. We work hard, but don't forget to relax.
With more than 450 colleagues, we always have something to celebrate. As one team, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and other successes!
Work on your mental health with access to the platform OpenUp. We learn every day, which is why we offer you free trainings and courses to keep developing yourself.
Achieve your goals and see this reflected in the form of a bonus? That's possible with us! Hard work is rewarded.
Work at one of our 4 locations, at home, or anywhere you feel comfortable. Of course you will receive a mobility and home working allowance from us.
Take advantage of the free sports facilities, fine workstations and enjoy a delicious lunch buffet. A formidable competitor of home!
Erix Santman
Product Manager
Diederick van Tellingen
UX Designer
Mattijs Wassenburg
Managing Director
Christine Koekkoek
Product Owner
We care more about how you think and work than whether you followed a textbook approach to project management. You are someone who:
Has a strong understanding of the field. Has real-world experience in MSP, staffing, the contingent workforce, talent management, services procurement, or a related field—enough to have strong, informed instincts about clients, talent, and partners.
Get the most out of AI. You use AI every day to research, design, prototype, and ship—and you stay up to date with what these tools can do as they evolve from month to month.
Prototypes and designs, fast. You can turn an idea into a working mockup, prototype, or lightweight build on your own, in a matter of hours, to make the abstract tangible.
Works in short cycles. You’re comfortable with daily iterations alongside AI-powered engineering teams, and you relentlessly optimize for time to market.
Makes decisions based on incomplete information. and has the judgment to make the right decision often enough.
Is comfortable with ambiguity and creates structure where there is none.
Is commercially minded — a technically impressive product that creates no business value is worthless.
Leads engineers to success: clear definitions, well-defined priorities, and the trust of the people doing the building.
Maintains a long-term vision while delivering this week, and ensures both are aligned with the broader strategy.
Works well with others—can collaborate with the Business and Strategy Offices and challenge senior stakeholders without creating unnecessary friction.
Moves quickly from "we can't" to "what would it take?"
Communicates fluently across business, product, data, and engineering.
Is energized by change rather than thrown off balance by it.
Experience with AI, automation, or data products is highly valuable. You don't need to be an ML engineer, but you do need to understand what AI can achieve, where its limitations lay, and how to turn that into something useful—for your users and for the way you work.
Any questions?
Feel free to ask, I'm happy to help!
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