Job Description: Product Manager, Innovation Engine
Job Title: Product Manager, Innovation Engine (IE)
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Languages Required: English and Japanese
Team: Product Work Style: Hybrid (combination of office in Tokyo and remote work)
About Us
Founded in 2014, Circles is a global technology company reimagining the telco industry with its innovative SaaS platform, empowering telco operators worldwide to effortlessly launch innovative digital brands or refresh existing ones, accelerating their transformation into techcos.
Today, Circles partners with leading telco operators across multiple countries and continents, including KDDI Corporation, Etisalat Group (e&), AT&T, and Telkomsel, creating blueprints for future telco and digital experiences enjoyed by millions of consumers globally.
Besides its SaaS business, Circles operates three other distinct businesses:
- Circles.Life: A wholly-owned digital lifestyle telco brand based in Singapore, Circles.Life is powered by Circles’ SaaS platform and pioneering go-to-market strategies. It is the digital market leader in Singapore and has won numerous awards for marketing, customer service, and innovative product offerings beyond connectivity.
- Circles Aspire: A global provider of Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) solutions. Its cloud-based Experience Cloud platform enables enterprises, service providers and developers to deliver and scale mobile, messaging, IoT, and connectivity services worldwide.
- Jetpac: Specializing in travel tech solutions, Jetpac provides seamless eSIM roaming for over 200 destinations and innovative travel lifestyle products, redefining connectivity for digital travelers. Jetpac was awarded Travel eSIM of the Year.
Circles is backed by renowned global investors, including Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia), Warburg Pincus, Founders Fund, and EDBI (the investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board), with a track record of backing industry challengers.
Position Overview:
We are looking for a highly entrepreneurial Product Manager to join our Innovation Engine (IE) team. As a key driver of our growth, you will own the end-to-end lifecycle of new ventures, from initial concept to market viability.
You will operate within our proven three-stage innovation framework: Ideation & Discovery, MVP Live Testing, and Stop-Iterate-Scale. You are passionate about exploring new business opportunities, comfortable with ambiguity, and skilled at using data to make high-stakes decisions.
This position reports to the Head of IE for Japan and requires close collaboration with international teams.
Key Responsibilities:
- Stage 1: Ideation & Discovery
- Lead the brainstorming and opportunity-sizing process to generate a pipeline of high-potential product ideas.
- Conduct rigorous market and customer research to identify unmet needs and validate business potential.
- Collaborate with stakeholders to evaluate, prioritize, and finalize ideas for development as Minimum Viable Products (MVPs).
- Stage 2: MVP Live Testing
- Drive the rapid development and deployment of MVPs within a sandbox environment.
- Define target user groups and manage live tests to gather real-time feedback and behavioral data.
- Analyze initial performance data to quickly update and refine MVPs in short cycles.
- Stage 3: Stop-Iterate-Scale
- Lead the assessment of all live MVPs against predefined success criteria (e.g., activation, engagement, monetization).
- Make data-driven, adaptive decisions to either stop an MVP, iterate on it for further testing, or prepare it to scale.
- Develop the initial scaling strategy and GTM plan for successful MVPs in collaboration with marketing, sales, and operations teams.
Qualifications:
- Minimum 5 years of experience in Product Management, with a strong portfolio of launching new products from scratch (0-1 experience).
- Proven experience working within a structured innovation framework focused on rapid experimentation and validation.
- Demonstrated ability to make tough, data-backed "stop, iterate, or scale" decisions on new initiatives.
- Expertise in product discovery techniques, including customer interviews, rapid prototyping, and A/B testing.
- Excellent communication skills in both English and Japanese, with the ability to articulate a clear vision and present data-driven insights to senior leadership.
- Familiarity with metrics for early-stage products focused on validating product-market fit.
- A highly independent and resilient mindset, comfortable navigating the uncertainty inherent in building new things.
- Bachelor’s degree in business, computer science, or a related field. MBA is a plus.
- Experience in the telecommunications industry or with launching ventures in entertainment, gaming, or Fintech is a strong plus.
Circles is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, disability or age. To all recruitment agencies: Circles will only acknowledge resumes shared by recruitment agencies if selected in our preferred supplier partnership program.
Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Circles, employees or any other company location. Circles will not be held accountable for any fees related to unsolicited resumes not uploaded via our ATS.
