Manager - Interactive Lead

Job Summary

 
The Manager – Gaming, Interactive Experiences & Commerce will lead the design and rollout of interactive and commerce-led engagement formats within the Hindi cluster, working hand-in-hand with product, business units, and content teams. This is a hands-on, build-and-drive role — the individual will translate show IP and audience moments into interactive experiences that deepen engagement, unlock new monetization, and create commerce hooks across the JioHotstar ecosystem.

The role sits at the intersection of content, product, commerce, and partnerships. The successful candidate will not be solely a gaming specialist — they will bring a balanced view across interactivity, audience engagement mechanics, and digital commerce, with the ability to drive cross-functional conversations end-to-end.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Driving the Interactivity Agenda Across Business Units

• Lead the interactivity charter for the Hindi cluster — partnering with Colors, MTV, Children and family, Movies, JHS, and JioStar Studios business unit leads to identify show properties, and audience moments where interactive layers can drive measurable engagement.
• Run structured discovery and prioritization conversations with BU teams — converting creative ambitions into a clear interactivity roadmap with timelines, scope, and success metrics.
• Ideate and help liaison across team above to build a portfolio of interactive formats — prediction games, trivia, live polls, quests, leaderboards, watch-along mechanics, voting, AR overlays, and second-screen experiences — calibrated to Hindi audiences across Tier 1, 2, and 3 markets.
• Define KPIs (DAU, participation rate, session length, retention, ARPU, conversion-to-commerce) and put in place a governance cadence to review and course-correct.

2. Product Co-Development & Roadmap Influence

• Act as the liaison working with JioHotstar product and engineering teams — translating interactivity and commerce requirements into clear product briefs, user stories, and prioritized feature requests.
• Drive the inclusion of interactive and commerce features within the broader JioHotstar product roadmap, ensuring alignment with show air-dates, tentpole events, and seasonal commerce moments.
• Champion the build-out of reusable, scalable interactive and commerce components that can be deployed across multiple show properties without per-show re-engineering.
• Partner with design and UX teams to ensure interactive surfaces feel native to the viewing experience and friction-free for users transacting within them.

3. Commerce Integration & Monetization

• Build the commerce layer within interactive experiences — including shoppable moments tied to shows, branded challenges, in-app rewards, virtual goods, premium passes, and subscription upsell hooks.
• Develop a working understanding of the broader commerce funnel — discovery, intent, checkout, payments, and post-purchase — and apply it to design interactive formats that move audiences from engagement to transaction.
• Collaborate with the commerce, ad sales, and brand partnerships teams to package interactive inventory for advertisers and create new revenue lines (sponsored games, branded play-to-win, live commerce drops, creator-led commerce).
• Define and track the KPI and measures of success for each activity

4. Show-Linked Format Design & Launch

• Work closely with showrunners, creative directors, and content teams to design interactive mechanics that are narratively coherent with show formats and episode structures.
• Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of interactive and commerce-linked launches — brief, concept, production, QA, go-to-market, and post-launch optimization.
• Ensure seamless cross-platform delivery across the JioHotstar app and web, with appropriate localization and cultural calibration for Hindi-speaking audiences.

5. Partnerships & Ecosystem Development

• Identify, evaluate, and onboard external partners — game studios, interactive tech vendors, commerce enablers, payment partners, and creator-economy platforms — to extend internal capability.
• Evaluate emerging surfaces — second-screen apps, connected TV, voice interfaces, and live commerce platforms — as additional distribution and monetization channels.
• Partner with marketing to design acquisition campaigns that drive adoption of interactive and commerce features among existing subscribers and to attract new sign-ups.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Essential

• 6–9 years of experience across digital product management, interactive entertainment, e-commerce, or digital media
• Demonstrated track record of launching consumer-facing interactive products, gamified experiences, or commerce features at scale — ideally in media, OTT, e-commerce, or D2C contexts.
• Strong product sensibility — able to write briefs, prioritize backlogs, and drive product and engineering teams without owning them directly.
• Working knowledge of how digital commerce operates — funnels, conversion levers, payment flows, monetization models — even if commerce was not the primary remit in past roles.
• Proven ability to drive cross-functional conversations with content, product, business, and partnership stakeholders, translating ambiguous asks into shipped outcomes.
• Hands-on experience with partnerships and commercial negotiations with technology vendors, gaming studios, or commerce platforms.
• Support preparation of reports and presentations for senior leadership on initiative progress.

Preferred

• Prior experience in OTT, broadcast media, fantasy sports, second-screen apps, live commerce, or social commerce platforms.
• Familiarity with Hindi entertainment content formats — reality shows, talent competitions, and long-running fiction.
• Exposure to live streaming interactivity, watch-party mechanics, shoppable video, or creator-led commerce.
• MBA from a premier institution or equivalent; engineering or product background is a strong plus.