Lead Engineer, Schibsted Product Lab

About the role

Schibsted is setting up a small, autonomous Product Lab that builds, launches and tests new media products with real users. It is looking for a Lead Engineer to join the core team. The role is as much an AI engineer as a software engineer, since much of what the Lab builds has AI at its core. You will set the technical direction and write a lot of the code yourself, reporting directly to the Director of Technology.

Key responsibilities

• Assess new product ideas quickly for technical feasibility, cost and risk, and recommend stop, continue or scale.
• Build and ship early prototypes and experiments using code, AI tools, APIs and Schibsted platforms to reach real user learning fast.
• Build new product experiences with AI at the core, using language models, agents and retrieval over journalism.
• Make architecture and technology choices that fit how mature each idea is, and know when a scrappy prototype needs to become a solid, scalable product.
• Work with product, design and editorial colleagues and connect Lab ideas with engineering, data, AI and platform teams across Schibsted.
• Coach engineers joining the teams, many of them for a few weeks or months from other parts of Schibsted.

Required profile

• Significant experience building digital and AI products as a software engineer, tech lead or similar senior role, still hands-on.
• Experience shipping products or features built on language models such as agents, retrieval or generated content, and measuring output quality and running costs.
• Broad technical skills across front end, back end, APIs and data, able to build a whole prototype yourself.
• An AI-native way of working, coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor or Codex daily.
• Experience taking products from prototype to production and making pragmatic trade-offs with limited information.
• A track record of recommending stopping a feature, system or product when the evidence goes against it.
• Technical leadership and coaching, bringing people together around a problem and giving engineers direction without formal authority.

What we offer

• Join the first core team of the Lab and shape its culture.
• Work on trusted brands, journalism, data and millions of users, with products that work having a path into VG, Aftonbladet and other brands.
• Room to work and clear decisions, outside today's roadmaps and KPIs.
• The chance to grow into broader leadership as the Lab grows.