Junior Product Manager

Mission

Your mission is to support the Senior Product Manager in driving and executing on Root’s product vision to help us rapidly evolve the Root platform into a world-leading insurance operating system that creates maximum value for our clients and users.

You will be enabling the product team in creating an effective experience for the most diverse user group on Root, our business users. Your goal is to gain deep insight into our clients’ business objectives (such as increasing revenue and customer retention, reducing operational cost, and providing a first-class customer experience across the policy lifecycle) to develop a platform that supports these objectives optimally. You will empathise deeply with business users such as sales and claims agents, supervisors, data ops managers, financial managers and more to develop solutions that empower them to succeed with Root.

You’ll work closely with the senior product manager and coordinate collaboration of product, engineering and design with all business units to rapidly evolve the Root platform into a world-leading insurance operating system.

In addition to the above, you will be responsible for driving feature rollout with support from the senior product manager, marketing and our client services team in order to drive feature adoption for the product initiatives under your domain.

Performance Indicators

• New features are specced (functional, technical, design scope) and ready for engineering at the start of each quarter

• We deliver on planned squad objectives each quarter: blockers are anticipated and raised early, and engineering and design output stays aligned to client need throughout the build

• Every feature is user-tested before rollout, with structured feedback returned to engineering for improvements before rollout and launch

• You work with Customer Success and Engineers to ensure that every client-facing feature ships with a help centre guide, rollout comms, and dev docs completed before the rollout flow begins

• A monthly rollout is executed on cadence, bundling all shipped features with their comms, documentation and client-facing materials

Outcomes

• We have a deep understanding of our clients’ operational objectives and build a platform that enables them to achieve these objectives.

• We offer an outstanding, no-friction user experience across the Root platform and empower our business users to succeed with Root.

• We have a clear vision and roadmap focused on the requirements of business users that is continuously maintained.

• We have a high cadence of shipping features in line with our product strategy

• The product and engineering team is closely aligned to and working towards clear objectives

• Internal and external stakeholders and users are actively engaged to solicit feedback and test hypotheses. Feedback is processed into the roadmap and product process.

• New features and enhancements are well defined, specced out and packaged before engineering has to start development (this is done in collaboration with engineers and product design).

• Feature rollouts drive client adoption: every client-facing feature ships with help centre guides, dev docs and rollout comms, delivered in collaboration client services.

• Features rollouts are used to drive further interest in Root: with the help of the Marketing team, new features are turned into marketing collateral to be shared as blog articles, Linkedin posts and with new prospects.

Role-Based Competencies

• Strong personal leadership.

• Experience in a dynamic product management role.

• Good understanding of insurance operations and industry trends.

• Ability to operate at the intersection of technology and business.

• Highly effective cross-functional team management.

• Proven experience overseeing all elements of the product development lifecycle.

• Able to clearly articulate complex problems and solutions to a technical (product) and non-technical audience.

• Strong focus on customer experience and ability to empathise with clients and users.

Qualification and experience

• Min. Bachelor’s degree.

• 3+ years of work experience as product owner, product manager, business analyst or in a related field.

• Background experience in working in insurance operations is beneficial.

• Experience in user experience design is beneficial.

AI use & legibility

• At Root, we use AI to amplify human capability. You are expected to make effective use of AI to reduce low-value effort and create more time for the work that benefits most from human judgment, creativity, expertise, and relationships.

• AI is not a substitute for critical thinking, ownership, or accountability. You are expected to apply sound judgment, verify outputs, and remain responsible for the quality of your work and decisions.

• As Root builds an increasingly AI-legible organisation, everyone is expected to contribute through effective documentation, knowledge-sharing, and context management that make information easier for both people and AI to discover, understand, and use.Technology startup background preferable.

Root Values

Lead by example: “Lean in, take charge, and always set a positive precedent.”

Exceed expectations: “Know your customer to delight your customer.”

Rally as one team: “Put aside egos and personal agendas to triumph as one.”

Own the mission: “Your job is not done until the job is done.”

Rise to the challenge: “Meaningful change requires meaningful effort and the courage to make bold moves.”

🚀 How we enable success:

Our team is made up of smart, passionate, and kind individuals working together to build a world-class business. We take the time to develop personal relationships with each other. Over and above daily team lunches, we do frequent team outings and ad-hoc adventures.

We create and enable an environment for people to do their best work. To support this, we focus on a culture of autonomy, transparency and trust.

🤝 Why join us?

We have ambitious goals. Our mission is to transform insurance, globally, and we’re making solid progress in South Africa and the UK. Your contribution will directly and visibly impact Root’s continued success and expansion.

Our team is incredibly friendly and collaborative. If you care about solving challenging problems with smart people you enjoy being around, this is the place for you.

Please note… Open positions at Root are competitive and we often receive high volumes of applicants. If you have not received further updates on your application after three weeks, you’re welcome to request feedback.