This month in Product, Data & Delivery -
June 2026
By Liam Pietzka | CEO/Founder, Brightbox Consulting
Why the best product CVs are getting passed over
A CPO we spoke with recently told us her board stopped asking about her roadmap six months ago.
Now every conversation starts with the same two questions.
What did the product contribute to retention last quarter?
What will it contribute to revenue next quarter?
She is one of several product leaders navigating this transition right now.
And it is playing out directly in how organisations are hiring.
The metric that is changing who gets hired
For a long time, product management was measured by output.
Features shipped. Roadmap delivered. Velocity maintained.
However, those things are no longer what organisations are hiring for at the senior end.
Instead, product leaders and senior PMs are being evaluated on impact metrics.
Customer retention. Revenue contribution. Operational efficiency. Risk reduction.
As a result, the question in interviews has moved. It is no longer “what did you build.” It is “what did it change?”
For example, the candidates we put forward who stand out can tell the story of a product decision and the commercial outcome it drove. Those who focus purely on delivery achievements, however impressive, are getting passed over at the final stage.
Why most product briefs are attracting the wrong candidates
Here is where it gets interesting. Most product briefs we read right now are still written around delivery. Backlog ownership. Roadmap management. Stakeholder alignment.
Those are table stakes. Writing a brief around them reliably attracts mid-level candidates when the organisation needs someone operating at a different level.
In addition, a delivery-focused brief signals to strong candidates that the organisation has not yet made the shift. That alone puts senior people off applying.
The organisations hiring well right now have rewritten their briefs to reflect their needs. They ask for evidence of commercial outcomes. They look for candidates who can connect product decisions to business goals and influence senior decision-makers with data and insight.
That is a harder brief to write. However, it produces a much sharper shortlist.
Discovery as a competitive advantage
There is another shift worth naming. As organisations face more pressure to justify investment decisions, discovery capability has become a genuine differentiator.
Product Managers who can frame problems, run customer research and test assumptions before committing resources are in high demand. Those who move straight into delivery, however efficiently, are increasingly seen as a risk.
For example, we are seeing this most clearly in enterprise, government and financial services hiring. The cost of building the wrong thing is high in those environments. As a result, stakeholders want evidence before they commit.
Three things to act on before your next product hire
First, rewrite the brief to focus on accountability. What is this person responsible for changing, not just managing? What does success look like in commercial terms twelve months in?
Second, look for the story behind the CV. The strongest candidates can connect a product decision to a business outcome. Ask for that in the interview, and listen for the specificity of the answer.
Third, move faster than feels necessary. Senior product leaders are selective right now. They are weighing stability, leadership quality and real scope. A slow or vague process loses them before the offer stage.
Ready to talk about your next product hire?
If any of this resonates with what you are seeing in your team, we would love to have a conversation.
Top 10 market signals - across design, marketing, product & engineering
1. The Atlassian and WiseTech wave is in the market now
Atlassian cut 1,600 roles in March and WiseTech followed with around 2,000. Combined with other major tech teams trimming headcount earlier this year, a significant wave of experienced Sydney engineers, designers and product people have entered the market. The window to access that talent is narrowing.
2. Insurance has moved workforce challenges from seventh to third on its list of top risks
Industry data from Gallagher Bassett’s 2026 Carrier Perspective report shows Australian insurers now rank attracting and retaining skilled workers as their third biggest challenge, up from seventh last year. The sector is becoming more digital and customer-focused and the skills required have changed faster than hiring strategies have.
3. Aviation is investing heavily in digital products and technology talent
Major Australian carriers are building out dedicated product and technology functions, with hundreds of new roles coming to market across UX, engineering and conversational AI over the next three years. The competition for that talent is intensifying.
4. Healthcare organisations are connecting product decisions to patient and commercial outcomes
Digital health investment in Australia is accelerating, with telehealth, mobile health and digital claims processing transforming customer experience across the sector. The product and design talent being hired into healthcare now needs to bridge clinical, commercial and technology contexts simultaneously.
5. AI specialist demand is outpacing supply by a significant margin
Australia’s AI specialist workforce is projected to reach around 85,000 by 2027. Demand over the same period is forecast to hit 140,000. That gap is already visible in every discipline we work across.
6. Forty-three per cent of software and data roles now mention AI in the job description
That figure comes from Indeed’s April 2026 Australian hiring data, with marketing at 17%. AI literacy is moving from a specialist requirement to a broad expectation across most technical disciplines.
7. Nine in ten chief people officers expect work to be organised around skills, not job titles
LinkedIn’s 2026 data makes this point clearly. Most hiring processes and job briefs have not kept pace with that yet.
8. Sydney’s digital marketing hiring is split by industry
Tech, ecommerce and consumer businesses are hiring actively. Financial services, insurance and B2B organisations are moving more deliberately, with multi-stakeholder approval processes adding weeks to timelines.
9. Australia’s data and AI market has moved from experimentation to ROI
Organisations are no longer interested in exploratory data science. They want AI that drives measurable business impact. That has made the brief more specific and the shortlist considerably smaller.
10. The strongest candidates across every discipline move within two to three weeks
The people worth hiring are in active processes fast. A slow internal approval or a vague brief is a missed hire.
Looking for a product manager who can think at a
systems level?
We’ve got 800 active product candidates and a 100% client return rate. See what genuine specialist PM recruitment looks like in Sydney.
About Brightbox Consulting
Brightbox Consulting is a specialist recruitment partner working across AI, Data and Emerging Tech, Product and Delivery, Design and Creative, Digital Marketing, and Engineering.
We hold a 100% five-star rating on Google and a 100% client return rate. Our clients include Qantas, Telstra, Macquarie, Bupa, Vodafone, and WooliesX, as well as a long list of scale-ups and high-growth businesses across Australia.
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2026 Salary Guide
The 2026 Brightbox Salary Guide covers salaries, market trends, what motivates people to move, and what keeps them from leaving across design, product, data, digital marketing, and engineering.
