Neil Hargreaves
Verified Expert in Product Management
Product Manager
Bangkok, Thailand
Toptal member since July 15, 2021
Neil is a product and engineering manager who loves to motivate teams to solve difficult problems. His expertise includes product strategy, UX design, software engineering for mobile and web projects, search, machine learning, user research, and Agile facilitation using Kanban and Scrum. Before freelancing, Neil led product and engineering teams and worked in search at Google and business analysis at GE. He is fluent in five languages and creates learning tools during his free time.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Leadership
- Engineering Management
- Machine Learning
- Product Roadmaps
- Product Strategy
- Statistical Data Analysis
- User Experience (UX)
- User Research
Work Experience
Product Engineering Manager
Self-employed
- Delivered the UX research, product roadmap, prototypes, and business plan for a new foreign language education project.
- Developed an ML-backed NLP pipeline to solve word sense disambiguation (WSD) for English language words in a given sentence.
- Successfully applied for a Thai SMART Visa and moved from Switzerland to Thailand.
Product Manager
Scout24 Switzerland
- Product managed leading marketplace iOS and Android applications, including user research, backlog, and release planning.
- Managed search improvement initiatives for web and mobile applications.
- Led a team of six developers, three of whom worked remotely in Vietnam, two members from QA, and two from UX.
- Oversaw Agile process improvements, reorganizing Scrum to Kanban, and combining discovery and delivery backlogs led to a more cohesive product development process.
- Recruited engineers, including three developers, who were later promoted within the company.
Engineering Manager
Corriere del Ticino
- Led the website redesign, development, and deployment for a flagship news website.
- Product managed and launched a job marketplace website.
- Recruited, coached, and managed engineers. Implemented version control, deployment, and testing processes.
Software Developer
Self-employed
- Designed, developed, and deployed iOS apps for clients, including Roche and Corriere del Ticino.
- Developed an iOS application for the region's leading newspaper.
- Built iOS applications for the internal enterprise app store.
Search Analyst
- Analyzed search quality and user experience issues, reported root causes, and prototyped solutions.
- Produced a weekly market watch, covering Swiss German, French, and Italian locales.
- Developed UX and data pipeline prototypes for Google's universal search initiative.
English Language Trainer, Education
British Council
- Taught beginner and intermediate classes using a multimedia language lab.
- Researched and prepared original content from internet, library, and media resources.
- Improved students’ communication skills by using techniques such as structured role-play and task-based discussions.
Business Analyst
General Electric
- Led pricing initiatives, product profitability analyses, and financial support for new products.
- Built a reporting database and related short- and long-range forecasting models.
- Developed and coordinated a financial planning process for two newly acquired companies.
Project History
Scout24 iOS and Android Apps
https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/anibis-ch-small-ads-jobs/id444680675?l=enLed a team to consistently ship measurable, user-oriented features that enhanced business value. Simplified Agile to increase the visibility of research, reduce technical debt, and simplify UX and engineering workflows in Vietnam and Switzerland.
Impact: Increases in user growth and retention, app store ratings, and conversion rate.
CDAYS Hackathon Winner
https://www.cdays.be/news/Won the 2018 cdays.be hackathon for the most challenging technical implementation.
Impact: The parent company organized the hackathon, so winning was an important boost in visibility that reinforced the company's Agile culture.
Corriere del Ticino Newspaper Website Redesign
http://www.cdt.chLed and shipped the full redesign of the region's leading news website with major simplification of the codebase from legacy monolithic code to an object-oriented framework.
Impact: Increased readership, subscriptions, and advertising revenue.
Corriere Lavoro (Job Courier)
https://www.jobcourier.chPerformed requirements analysis, UX design, and project management for a new classified job site and worked with external developers.
Impact: Successful launch and increase of classified advertising sales.
CdT Live
https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/cdt-live/id501635482?l=itDesigned, developed, and deployed a native Objective-C iOS application and maintained and delivered the full redesign for iOS 7.
Impact: Achieved App Store presence with consistent 5-star ratings and grew a significant user base and advertising revenue.
Roche iOS & Web App - Mobile Companion (Enterprise App Store)
https://appzone.roche.com/Designed, developed and deployed native Objective-C iOS application to enterprise appstore.
Google Universal Search for Retail Brands
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2007/05/taking-advantage-of-universal-searchUsed user research and statistical data analysis to identify gap in Google search offering. Feature proposal and UX prototype was accepted for implementation and global roll-out.
Jobline
https://www.jobline.uni-muenchen.de/index.htmlDeveloped, delivered and improved didactic content for university language course and website.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Finance, Information Systems
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology - Manchester, England, UK
Exchange Year in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Finance
Babson College - Wellesley, MA, USA
Certifications
Python for Machine Learning & Data Science Masterclass
Udemy
AI Vision Workshop
Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD)
Apple Teacher with Swift Playgrounds
Apple
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Scrum Alliance
Financial Management Program (FMP)
General Electric
Skills
Tools
Xcode, Spreadsheets, TextMate, Google Docs, Jira, Microsoft Access, Apple Keynote, Git, Sketch, IBM Watson, Confluence, InVision
Paradigms
Scrum, Agile, Agile Product Management, B2C, Kanban, Maintainability, Requirements Analysis, Design Thinking, Augmented Reality (AR)
Industry Expertise
Marketplaces
Platforms
Unix, Jupyter Notebook
Other
Business Planning, Presentations, Communication, Release Management, Feature Prioritization, Facilitation, Platforms, Microsoft Office, Business Analysis, Statistical Data Analysis, German, Italian, iOS, Swift, Product Management, Product Roadmaps, Wireframing, User Research, Software Engineering, Engineering Management, Prototyping, Data Analysis, Language Learning, Backlog Management, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Mobile Apps, Stakeholder Management, Product Owner, Digital Product Management, Mobile Applications, User Personas, User Stories, Story Mapping, User Journeys, User Journey Maps, Discovery, Personas, Product Discovery, Business Strategy, Feature Roadmaps, Intercultural Competence, Technical Product Management, Product Research, App UX, Team Leadership, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Product Ownership, Business to Consumer (B2C), Data Analytics, Competition Research, Financial Modeling, Roadmaps, Marketing Strategy, Cross-functional Collaboration, Apple, Databases, Marketing, Startups, Teaching, User Experience (UX), Objective-C, Web Product Management, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Software Design, SQL, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), QA Testing, Educational Platform Design, Education Product Manager, Product Strategy, Agile Leadership, Remote Team Leadership, Requirements & Specifications, REST APIs, Analytics, Market Research, Strategy, Discovery Workshops, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Estimations, Requirements, Product Design, Project Management, Product Analytics, Data Visualization, Lean Experiments, Documentation, Technical Writing, Writing & Editing, Product Marketing, Reporting, Product Vision, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Competitive Strategy, Go-to-market Plans, Product Leadership, Team Management, Distributed Team Management, Software as a Service (SaaS), SaaS, Market Sizing, New Product Development, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Value Proposition, Scrum Master, Quality Assurance (QA), QA Leadership, Funnel Optimization, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), eCommerce, Head of Product, Content Management, Content Management Systems (CMS), Operations, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Acquisitions, Languages, Web Development, Android, Forecasting, Image Recognition, Technical Recruiting, Enterprise Software, SwiftUI, PyTorch, Core ML, ARKit, Copywriting, Data Science, Python, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Matplotlib, Content Creation
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