Director of Product, Lab

Fundraise Up is a global fundraising platform that powers tens of millions of dollars in donations every month for leading nonprofits including UNICEF, the Alzheimer's Association, and a wide range of global NGOs. The company is known for product quality, performance, and a 4.9/5 rating across top review platforms. The Lab is Fundraise Up's 0→1 track, operating ahead of the roadmap to investigate opportunities driven by new technologies, AI, data, and infrastructure shifts, often before there is a clear buyer or demand signal. The Lab finds, validates, and hands off products worth scaling.

Experience (Must-Have):

• 8–10+ years in Product with a proven 0→1 track record.
• Personally owned multiple high-risk bets with explicit go/kill decisions.
• 3+ years managing PMs (player-coach or group lead).
• Fluency across validation tools: discovery, prototypes, engineered MVPs; knows when each is appropriate.
• Cross-functional leadership across Engineering, Design, Analytics, and GTM; comfortable in pre-sales/pilot settings.
• Experience where learning speed mattered more than polish and real downside risk was present.

AI & Technical Judgment (Critical):

• Hands-on experience using AI as a product-building and exploration tool.
• Can prototype with LLMs, APIs, or modern tooling and ship a functional prototype quickly.
• Able to scope AI experiments realistically and judge feasibility without full engineering validation.
• Can spot capability shifts and turn them into testable hypotheses.
• Evaluates build vs. buy vs. partner decisions.

Bonus:

• Ex-founder with a clear ship/scale/kill story and measurable outcomes.
• Payments, fintech, e-commerce, or nonprofit domain experience.
• EU market familiarity (PSD2/SCA, data/privacy norms) and additional languages.

• Own the Lab bet portfolio: size opportunities, set entry/exit criteria, and make scale/iterate/kill decisions; maintain a visible exploration backlog.
• Frame experiments around the single riskiest assumption; define kill criteria before building; choose appropriate fidelity (prototype, spike, wizard-of-oz, no-code, live pilot); ship fast and protect learning speed.
• Synthesize results into opinionated recommendations; communicate what was tested, learned, and unknown; kill zombie initiatives; every experiment ends with a decision.
• Prepare validated hypotheses, evidence packs, risks, and proposed scaling models for bets showing strong signals; transfer ownership fully.
• Source and close lighthouse pilots with clear scope, metrics, and off-ramps; identify enabling partners and join strategic calls to move pilots to business validation.
• Build a repeatable Lab Operating System including pipeline reviews, kill reviews, demo days, and post-mortems.
• Use AI tools to accelerate research, synthesis, and prototyping; explore AI-enabled product ideas with realistic views on cost, data, and accuracy; publish decision memos and share failed experiments openly.

The role requires fluency in English and Russian. The position is remote with core hours 9:00–18:00 CET and is located in Poland. Equal opportunity employer statement included.