Senior Principal Product Manager - Search

Role: We are looking for an experienced product leader to shape the future of Search, building intelligent, AI-powered experiences that help millions of customers find exactly what they need quickly and confidently, often before they know how to ask. You'll lead the strategy and execution for Search and Discovery leveraging AI, machine learning, and customer insights to continuously improve query understanding, relevance, ranking, and the overall search journey. You'll partner closely with Engineering, Data Science, Design, and Commercial teams to solve complex customer problems at scale, while building a product vision that balances innovation with measurable business outcomes. Responsibilities: - Define and own the product strategy and roadmap for Search and Discovery, delivering exceptional customer and business value. - Lead the evolution of AI and machine learning capabilities that improve search relevance, intent understanding, ranking, and discovery. - Champion customer-first thinking by deeply understanding search behaviours, customer intent, and friction points, translating insights into intuitive product experiences. - Build search and discovery experiences that just work, reducing customer effort through intelligent defaults, contextual understanding, and seamless discovery. - Partner with Data Science and Engineering to develop, deploy, and continuously optimise ML models and experimentation frameworks. - Drive product decisions through data, experimentation, and measurable outcomes, using A/B testing and analytics to improve customer success. - Collaborate across Product, Design, Engineering, Commercial, and Operations to ensure search capabilities are embedded across the end-to-end customer journey. - Stay at the forefront of advances in AI, generative AI, semantic search, large language models, vector search, and ranking systems, identifying opportunities to apply emerging technologies where they create meaningful customer value. - Communicate product vision, strategy, and outcomes clearly to senior stakeholders, aligning teams around shared goals. Qualifications: - Extensive experience leading products for search, discovery, AI/ML products, or customer experience platforms. - A strong track record of defining product strategy and delivering measurable outcomes in complex, data-rich environments. - Deep understanding of modern search technologies, including semantic search, relevance, ranking, recommendation systems, vector search, embeddings, and generative AI applications. - Experience partnering closely with Machine Learning and Data Science teams, with the ability to translate technical capabilities into customer pleasure. - Strong improvement and experimentation skills, using customer research, analytics, and experimentation to drive decisions. - Proven people management experience, including coaching and developing high-performing product managers. - Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across technical and non-technical audiences. - A systems thinker who can balance long-term strategic investments with iterative delivery. - Passion for applying AI to solve meaningful customer problems, reducing complexity, and building trusted experiences. What We Offer: Zalando provides a range of benefits, including: 27 days of holiday a year to start for full-time employees, 2 paid volunteering days a year, employee shares program, 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners, relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement), family services, health and wellbeing options (including Wellhub), mental health support and coaching, and a training platform with biannual peer-to-peer review.