At Avito, we are looking for a Head of Product for the Communication Platform Unit (Messenger, Calls, Bots).
Avito is one of the largest product and technology services in Russia. Every month, tens of millions of people use Avito to buy, sell, hire, rent out, look for jobs, and solve everyday tasks. Most transactions on Avito start with communication. Users clarify terms, negotiate prices, discuss details, check trust with each other, and make decisions about transactions. This happens through messages, phone calls, in-app calls, and automated responses.
We are looking for a unit lead to head Avito's communication platform unit: Messenger, Calls, and Bot Platform. This is a role with a large scale of impact: Avito's communication tools are used by tens of millions of users. The quality of these products directly affects target agreements and transactions, the speed of communication between buyers and sellers, user satisfaction, security, and incremental revenue growth.
Responsibilities
You will be responsible for the development of Avito's key communication platforms:
- Messenger: We create conditions to make messaging on Avito more convenient, faster, and safer than in other channels. We develop the user experience in chats, help buyers and sellers agree faster, improve dialogue quality, and protect users from fraud, suspicious links, spam, and personal data disclosure.
- Calls and Call Tracking: We develop voice communication within Avito: calls for listings, in-app calls, a system of virtual numbers, anti-spam protection, and call tracking for professional sellers. These tools help businesses understand the effectiveness of their listings, analyze inquiries, evaluate employee performance, avoid losing potential deals, and increase conversion from user interest to a target agreement.
- Bot Platform and AI Automation: We build a platform for creating chatbots, virtual assistants, and automations for users and internal teams. Bots already help process a significant portion of support inquiries. The next major focus is a virtual assistant for sellers, which will help them respond to buyers faster, qualify leads, suggest next steps, automate routine communications, and increase sales efficiency on Avito.
Scope of the Role:
- You will lead a unit of about 40 people, including product managers, engineers, analysts, designers, and other roles. Within the unit, there will be several product streams, including 3 product managers.
- This is a horizontal product role. Communication platforms are used by all key Avito verticals: Goods, Auto, Real Estate, Services, and Jobs. Therefore, it will be important to find a balance between the platform's own strategy and the needs of business directions.
- In this role, strong stakeholder management, the ability to negotiate priorities, and the capacity to translate requests from different verticals into scalable platform solutions are especially important.
Key Goals of the Role:
You will develop communication platforms so that they directly impact Avito's key metrics:
- Growth in target agreements and transactions between users;
- Incremental revenue uplift through communication tools, seller tools, automation, and platform solutions;
- Acceleration of communication between buyers and sellers;
- Growth in seller and buyer CSAT;
- Improvement of safety metrics: reduction of spam, fraud, suspicious scenarios, and other undesirable actions in communications.
Examples of Future Tasks:
- Formulate and implement the development strategy for Avito's communication platforms: Messenger, Calls, Call Tracking, Bot Platform, and AI Assistants.
- Manage the unit's product portfolio: set priorities, assess the impact of initiatives, balance user value, security, technical complexity, and business effect.
- Increase the number of target agreements and transactions by improving communication between users.
- Enhance communication speed and quality: help sellers respond faster, buyers get the necessary information quicker, and both parties reach an agreement more quickly.
- Develop AI and bot-first scenarios for automating seller operations, support, and internal processes.
- Increase seller and buyer CSAT in communication scenarios.
- Manage a team of about 40 people: establish goals, processes, areas of responsibility, product culture, and decision-making systems.
- Develop the product management team: help them grow, enhance their product expertise, and improve the quality of their decisions.
- Collaborate with Avito's vertical businesses, find common priorities, and translate requests from different directions into scalable platform solutions.
- Work closely with engineering, analytics, design, security, support, sales, and commercial teams.
- Build a clear metrics system: from user experience and security to impact on deals, revenue, communication speed, and user satisfaction.
It would be great if you have:
- Strong experience in managing products with a large audience and high business criticality.
- Proven experience leading multiple product teams or a major product area.
- Ability to manage teams through leads and product managers, not just directly.
- Understanding of how to build platform products used by various business units.
- Skill in managing a large number of stakeholders and setting priorities amidst competing requests.
- Proficiency in product analytics: ability to formulate hypotheses, build metrics, assess the impact of decisions, and make data-driven choices.
- Ability to link product changes to business outcomes: deals, revenue, conversion, response speed, CSAT, and safety metrics.
- Understanding of the specifics of communication products: messengers, calls, CRM, automation, customer communications, or similar systems.
- Interest in AI, bots, LLM scenarios, and automation of user or operational processes.
- Ability to connect long-term strategy with strong execution: from vision and roadmap to launching specific features and measurable results.
- Capacity to balance business growth, user experience quality, security, and the platform's technological stability.
It would be a plus if you have:
- Experience in marketplaces, classifieds, e-commerce, ride-hailing, food tech, fintech, telecom, SaaS, or other products with a high volume of user-to-user communication.
- Experience developing messengers, voice platforms, call tracking, contact centers, CRM, conversational AI, or bot platforms.
- Experience launching AI assistants, automating seller operations, support, or internal operator processes.
- Experience with trust & safety, anti-spam, anti-fraud, personal data protection, and communication security.
- Experience managing a horizontal platform within a large product organization.
- Experience creating products that simultaneously improve user experience and provide measurable revenue uplift.
Working at Avito means:
- The opportunity to implement ideas in a project with a multi-million audience;
- A talented team ready to support your initiatives;
- Powerful hardware, AI tools, and everything needed for productive work;
- A transparent bonus system, a competitive salary – the amount will be discussed during the interview;
- A personal budget for training, which can be spent on books, courses, and conferences;
- Health care: from day one, you will have VHI with dental coverage, and a therapist and massage therapist are available at the office;
- Remote work and an office located 2 minutes from Belorusskaya metro station: panoramic views of the city center, private workspaces, and relaxation areas.
