Head of Product Development

Appodeal; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Appodeal, a US-based product company with a global presence, seeks a Head of Product Development to lead WordMaker, Solitaire and Brick Blast. You will own end-to-end strategy, ROADMAPS, PRDs, LiveOps, and monetization while mentoring cross-functional squads. The role emphasizes AI-driven tools and rapid experimentation.

You will shape product strategy, drive growth, and ensure high-quality execution without layers, directly impacting revenue and player experience across a live portfolio.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in mobile games or mobile product with senior leadership.
• Proven track record growing casual mobile games and driving retention.
• Deep understanding of core loop, LiveOps, economy, and monetization.
• Strong product craft: roadmaps, PRDs, prioritization, experimentation and metrics.
• Experience leading teams that include engineers. No coding required.
• AI-native, with concrete examples of AI speeding up your work.
• Leadership by proximity: led small, high-performing teams and grows people.

Responsibilities

• Lead at least one app end-to-end as DRI: roadmap, PRDs, experiments, releases and profit.
• Set priorities across squads and maintain delivery quality.
• Define portfolio strategy and build the roadmap grounded in eProfit.
• Drive retention, engagement and monetization through LiveOps and economy changes.
• Lead AI adoption and build prototypes to test ideas across the portfolio.

Skills

Mobile games leadership

Product leadership

AI in product work

Data-driven decisions

Team leadership

Roadmaps & PRDs

Tools

Firebase

GameAnalytics

Amplitude

Job description

Appodeal is a dynamic US-based product company with a truly global presence.

We have offices in Warsaw, Barcelona and Parkland (FL), along with remote team members located around the world.

Our company thrives on diversity, collaboration, and innovation, making us a leader in the mobile app monetization space.

Why Appodeal?

At Appodeal, we're more than just a company, we're a team united by a common mission: Help people discover and grow their talents through products that enable successful mobile app businesses!

We take pride in our cutting-edge product and our internationally dispersed team of talented professionals.

Here's what we value, and what we hope you do too:

• Continuous Learning and Growth: We are passionate about learning, growing personally, and building rewarding careers.
• Making an Impact: We are committed to building a history-defining company that leaves a lasting impact on the mobile app industry.
• Solving Exciting Challenges: We tackle complex problems every day, supported by a team of world-class professionals and mentors.
• Enjoying the Journey: We believe in having fun while working toward our goals.

Appodeal is a dynamic US-based product company with a truly global presence.

We have offices in Warsaw, Barcelona and Parkland (FL), along with remote team members located around the world. Our company thrives on diversity, collaboration and innovation, making us a leader in the mobile app monetization space.

Why Appodeal?
At Appodeal, we're more than just a company. We're a team united by a common mission: help people discover and grow their talents through products that enable successful mobile app businesses. We take pride in our cutting-edge product and our internationally dispersed team of talented professionals.
Here’s what we value, and what we hope you do too:
Continuous Learning and Growth: we are passionate about learning, growing personally and building rewarding careers.
Making an Impact: we are committed to building a history-defining company that leaves a lasting impact on the mobile app industry.
Solving Exciting Challenges: we tackle complex problems every day, supported by a team of world-class professionals and mentors.
Enjoying the Journey: we believe in having fun while working toward our goals.

Appodeal is looking for a Head of Product Development to lead our mobile games portfolio: WordMaker, Solitaire and Brick Blast.

How we're organized.

We run squads, not cross-functional departments. Each game has its own squad (product, engineering, QA, design and marketing in one unit), and every squad is led by a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) who owns that app end-to-end, from roadmap to profit. There are no shared teams and no handoffs between functions: the squad is the unit of ownership.

This role is both sides of that model.

DRI of your own squad.

You personally lead at least one of our apps end-to-end: its strategy, roadmap, PRDs, experiments, releases and profit outcome. This is hands-on ownership with your name on the result, not oversight.

Player-coach of the whole product team.

You lead the DRIs of the other squads, own product craft and the quality of PRDs across all of them, and raise the bar by example, with no management layers between you and the teams.

This is a product leadership role first. You own where the games go: the strategy, the roadmap and the bets that grow them. You direct the engineering inside the squads without needing to be the strongest engineer in the room. You don't need to write code, but you do need to use AI to get things done yourself.

What You Own

Your Squad (end-to-end DRI ownership)

Lead at least one app end-to-end as its DRI: roadmap, PRDs, experiments, releases and the profit outcome are yours personally.

Make your squad the reference for how a squad should run, the standard the other squads copy.

Product Strategy and Roadmap

Define and evolve the product strategy for the portfolio, grounded in eProfit outcomes.

Build and own the roadmap: decide what to improve in each game, in what order, and why.

Own product hypotheses and the quality of PRDs across the team. Write them yourself on the highest-priority bets.

Game Growth and Metrics

Drive retention, engagement and monetization through features, meta, LiveOps and economy changes.

Run a steady cycle of experiments and A/B tests, and turn the results into decisions.

Stay in the data daily: retention, ARPU, ARPDAU and experiment results across the portfolio.

Leading the Squads

Lead the product team organized as app squads: Product Owners (each the DRI of their squad), Unity and backend engineers, QA and design.

Set priorities and tasks for engineering, and make trade-offs between speed, quality and scope together with the engineers.

Keep delivery predictable and the quality bar high.

Build a culture where people act as DRIs, not ticket-resolvers, and address performance gaps directly.

AI in Product Work

Use AI yourself to research, prototype, analyse and build small tools, so ideas get tested without waiting on the team.

Drive AI adoption across product and engineering: PRD drafting, competitive research, analytics and LiveOps automation, test automation.

Cross-Functional

Work closely with monetization, UA, data and R&D so portfolio decisions are grounded in full eProfit context.

Own the handover process from R&D into the live team.

Requirements

Must-Have

• 8+ years in mobile games or mobile product, including senior product leadership.
• A proven record of growing casual mobile games: you have owned a game or a portfolio and moved retention, engagement and revenue.
• Deep understanding of how casual games grow: core loop, meta, LiveOps, economy, and how ad and IAP monetization interact with the player experience.
• Strong product craft: roadmaps, PRDs, prioritization, experimentation and metric-driven decisions.
• Experience leading teams that include engineers. You set direction and tasks and understand the constraints well enough to make trade-offs. No coding required.
• AI-native, not AI-curious. You have concrete examples of AI tools speeding up your own work and can describe the workflows you changed, the results, and how you checked the output.
• Leadership by proximity: you have led small, high-performing teams and grow people by working alongside them.

Strong Signals

• Founded or co-founded a mobile gaming studio.
• Scaled an ad-monetized casual game from early traction to meaningful portfolio revenue.
• Experience with word, card, solitaire or puzzle games.
• Built prototypes or internal tools yourself with AI.
• Familiarity with Firebase, GameAnalytics or Amplitude.

Why Join Us?

• Ownership without guardrails. You set the product direction. No committee, no layers.
• Real products, real traction. WordMaker, Solitaire and Brick Blast are live, growing games with real users and real data.
• AI-first environment. AI is at the core of how we build, test and iterate.
• Lean, high-trust team. Small team, fast decisions, high impact per person.
• Competitive compensation. Competitive salary, performance-based bonuses and clear growth opportunities.

We believe in the following values, and hope you do too:

• Leverage data to build product. We rely on data to make informed decisions and create products that solve real problems. While data guides us, we apply insight, context and wisdom to interpret it thoughtfully.
• We work together to serve others. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. By serving others (customers, teammates and stakeholders) we create value and build trust.
• Relentless pursuit of excellence. We commit to grow and evolve in everything we do, constantly seeking opportunities to refine our processes, skills and results.
• Passionate curiosity fuels perseverance. Passionate curiosity drives us to explore challenges, learn from setbacks and adapt with resilience.
• Direct and straightforward, no politics. Transparency and honesty are essential. We communicate clearly, focus on facts and avoid unnecessary politics or hidden agendas.
• Lean startup mentality: start small, iterate quickly. We prioritize experimentation, fast learning, resourcefulness, agility and innovation.
• Ownership and accountability. Everyone is empowered to take ownership of their work. We are accountable for our decisions, actions and outcomes.

_ Ready to lead with impact? _

With an outstanding product and a mission that excites and inspires, Appodeal offers a unique opportunity to make an impact while being part of an amazing team.

Join us

and help shape the future of mobile app success!