Product Development Manager
Introduction
Every Elegelli product starts as a brief to a laboratory and ends as a bottle a nail artist trusts under a lamp. Until now that process has run through the founder. This role takes it over: choosing the partners, driving the formulation, and getting products from first sample to first production run.
Your mission
Own the product pipeline from brief to launch, and make sure every product that ships behaves the way professionals expect it to on the first application.
What you will do
- Write product briefs for gels, bases, tops, primers and liquids, and take them to laboratories for formulation
- Manage sample rounds with the labs: request, test, document the result and specify the next iteration
- Run practical testing with professional testers and record cure, adhesion, wear and removal behaviour
- Specify packaging with the supplier who produces it: bottle, cap, brush, label and secondary packaging
- Assemble each product's documentation pack — formulation, ingredient list, batch specification — for the regulatory file
- Plan the launch calendar with the commercial and content teams so stock, assets and training land together
- Track what competitors release and what techniques professionals are actually using, and turn that into the next brief
- Review the first production run against the approved standard and either sign it off or reject it
What we are looking for
- 3+ years developing cosmetic products, ideally nail, colour cosmetics or another formulated category
- Experience briefing external laboratories and steering them through several formulation rounds
- Practical understanding of gel chemistry, curing, adhesion and wear
- Ability to read an ingredient list, a specification sheet and a stability report and act on them
- Working knowledge of what an EU cosmetic product file has to contain
- Disciplined documentation habits — every sample, result and decision is written down
- Fluent English used daily with suppliers
- Willingness to travel to laboratories and factories a few times a year
Nice to have
These are optional.
- Hands-on nail experience, as a technician, artist or serious amateur
- Experience with packaging development and print-ready artwork
- Existing working relationships with cosmetics laboratories
What we offer
- Ownership of the product roadmap rather than execution of someone else's brief
- Full-time, fully remote within Europe, with a flexible schedule
- Travel covered for laboratory and factory visits
- Elegelli products and development samples supplied for testing
- Direct access to the founder and a short decision chain
- Products you develop reaching professionals in roughly 20 countries
How we hire
- Application review — we read every application ourselves, usually within one week.
- Introductory call — 30 minutes with the founder or hiring lead to cover the role and your background.
- Practical exercise — a short, realistic task related to the role. We do not ask for unpaid project work.
- Final conversation — deeper discussion on how you work, followed by a decision.
Elegelli values ability, ownership and results more than traditional credentials. If you do not match every point but believe you can do the work, apply anyway.