Senior Product Owner (AI Products) - Hybrid Model

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

A fast-growing, people-first technology company is hiring a Senior Product Owner to own AI products that extract, understand, and structure information at scale. This is a hands-on delivery role sitting at the intersection of product ownership and machine learning — not a coordination layer, but a genuine seat at the table where the AI gets built.

The team is technical, senior, and moves fast. The culture is defined by ownership, agility, and a genuine investment in people's growth. If you've spent the last few years owning complex AI or data products and you're energized by working directly with ML engineers and data scientists rather than managing stakeholders from a distance — this is the role.

PROJECT & CONTEXT

You'll be embedded in a cross-functional AI team of around ten people — ML engineers, software engineers, DevOps, data engineers, and an architect — building proprietary AI systems that process CVs, job descriptions, and skills data at high scale. The team builds their own models. This isn't a "plug in a third-party API" environment.

Your remit covers backlog ownership, sprint planning, experiment prioritization with the ML team, and keeping delivery moving across complex, interdependent initiatives. You'll also be the person who resolves escalations, spots cross-team blockers before they land, and keeps the team anchored to the real-world problem they're solving.

Direct hire, hybrid model based in Porto.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Product & Technical Skills

• 4+ years as a Product Owner — not Product Manager, not Program Manager. Hands-on backlog ownership, sprint planning, and Agile delivery at team level
• Demonstrated experience working on AI/ML products: you understand how models are trained, evaluated, and improved — not just what they output
• Comfortable engaging engineers as a peer: you can read constraints, challenge assumptions, and earn trust without needing to code
• Strong Agile delivery experience — you know how to keep a senior technical team moving without micromanaging
• Confident making prioritization calls under ambiguity, with clear ownership and accountability
• Actively using AI tools to accelerate your own work, with full ownership of output quality

Background

• Ideally a background that bridges data/ML and product — former data scientists or analysts who moved into product ownership are a strong fit
• Track record of working on technically complex, high-scale systems
• Preference for candidates currently in PO roles, not those who have moved into PM or Director-level positions

Languages

• English: C1 (Advanced) — mandatory. All product and team communication is in English.

Location

• Based in or willing to commute to Porto — hybrid model, frequency to be confirmed.

NICE TO HAVE

• Familiarity with information retrieval systems such as Elasticsearch or OpenSearch
• Exposure to taxonomies, ontologies, or graph databases
• Experience in staffing, recruiting, or HR tech industry contexts
• Awareness of AI compliance and ethics considerations in product development
• Prior experience with ATS or recruitment technology platforms (e.g. Bullhorn or similar)

Compensation: €46,000 – €59,000/year gross, depending on experience and seniority level.

Why HumanIT people stay (4.4 Glassdoor, 89% recommend)

- 15th month salary
- Health insurance covering your family
- Birthday off
- Mobility program for digital nomads
- Real work-life balance

Full benefits https://www.humanit.pt/careers/#perks
What it's really like https://www.humanit.pt/careers/#work-at