About the job
Freelance Lead Product Manager
- IR35: Outside
- Contract Length: 12 months
- Start Date: November 2026
- Location: Hybrid with twice per month in the London office
- Day rate: £500-600
About the role
Elsewhen is a London-based AI consultancy. We design and build technology for clients like Spotify, Google, Inmarsat and Zego. We value outcomes over hours and agility over rigid process.
We're looking for an experienced Lead Product Manager to own a data and AI engagement from day one. The work focuses on rapid pilot builds, Databricks dashboards and Next Best Action modelling. You'll own discovery, shape the solution and validate it with the client, making sure what we build fits their wider vision and the outcomes they care about.
You'll lead a small, cross-functional team alongside an AI Engineer and a Data Scientist.
What you'll do:
Get up to speed fast
- Understand the client's business, vision, terminology and priorities, and how the engagement fits into them
- Run early technical deep dives with the client's data and engineering teams
Lead discovery and shape the build
- Align on goals, constraints and success metrics with stakeholders for three workstreams, incl. Model explainability, Dashboard creation and agentic research.
- Understand current models and drive towards model improvements, media spend and next best action
- Run workshops to agree a realistic scope, balancing value, feasibility and speed
Drive delivery
- Take the team from concept to production-grade solution
- Keep a clear, prioritised backlog and make progress visible through regular updates and demos
- Spot risks early, manage scope firmly and escalate only what needs escalating
Validate with users and stakeholders
- Run SME sessions, playbacks and early user testing
- Turn feedback into clear, actionable improvements and iterate quickly
Own client communication and outcomes
- Lead client touchpoints, including weekly reviews and the final playback
- Turn findings into clear recommendations that support go/no-go decisions and next steps for scaling
What we're looking for
Experience
- A proven track record delivering data and AI solutions
- At least 2 years in a consultancy, leading client-facing engagements end to end
- Hands-on experience with Databricks / Azure, data models and paid media modelling - a huge advantage
- A history of delivering pilots and prototypes to tight timelines in fast-paced, iterative environments
- Can demonstrate how you handle client feedback positively and can balance competing priorities to reach mutually beneficial outcomes
- You're a calm, confident communicator who explains complex ideas simply and presents with quiet authority
- You build trust with senior stakeholders and are comfortable running workshops and playbacks
AI fluency
- You understand how AI is changing the industry, from tooling to the new products
- You use AI tools in your own work and know how to delegate tasks to LLMs well
- You can spot low-quality AI output and know what good looks like before anything goes in front of a client