At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead product strategy and integrate AI to transform hospitality technology.
- Company: H&L POS, a leader in hospitality tech with 30+ years of experience.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, direct access to leadership, and global impact.
- Other info: Join a small, senior team where your decisions matter.
- Why this job: Shape the future of hospitality tech and drive real change with AI.
- Qualifications: 8+ years in product management, strong AI and software skills required.
Overview
H&L POS (Hospitality & Leisure) is a leading provider of point-of-sale and integrated business management solutions purpose-built for the hospitality and food & beverage sectors. With more than 30 years of industry experience, H&L delivers flexible POS, back-of-house, inventory, workforce management and reporting systems that help hotels, pubs, restaurants, bars, clubs, cafés, liquor retailers and event venues operate efficiently and profitably.
Our platform connects front-of-house sales with stock control and data management, supports online ordering, table service, reservations and advanced reporting, and integrates with more than 150 hospitality technology partners. H&L's customer-centric approach and deep sector expertise enable operators to focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences while maintaining visibility, control and sustainable growth across their businesses.
The Opportunity
H&L is entering its next phase of growth. As a well-established hospitality technology provider with a strong customer base and a respected product suite, we have a significant opportunity to modernize how we operate and compete, and AI is at the center of that ambition.
We are seeking a senior, hands-on product and AI leader to own both the evolution of our product platform and the practical integration of AI across the business. This is not a research or advisory role. It is a dual mandate: build and ship products that customers value and pay for, and deploy AI in ways that make H&L measurably faster, leaner, and more competitive.
The Head of Product & AI Innovation Lead will work directly with the Managing Director and the leadership team to drive product strategy, validate and launch AI-powered features, redesign internal workflows, and deliver tangible business outcomes. Success in this role is measured by impact: product adoption, customer retention, margin improvement, and faster execution across the organization.
Key Responsibilities
- Product Strategy & Roadmap
- Own the end-to-end product strategy and roadmap, aligned with company objectives
- Drive product discovery and validation through structured customer research, rapid prototyping, and market testing
- Oversee the full product lifecycle from ideation through commercialization and scaling, with a clear prioritization framework
- Set strategic objectives and measurable success metrics for all product initiatives
- Balance the evolution of the core platform with client-specific custom development
- Establish capacity visibility across the product and engineering pipeline so that client commitments are made with confidence and delivery delays become the exception
- AI-Powered Product Development
- Build working product solutions using AI as the primary execution medium, moving from problem framing to working solution without reliance on legacy SDLC rituals
- Rapidly prototype, iterate, and refine solutions to validate ideas early
- Conduct structured discoveries with customers to identify the highest-value opportunities; build a clear business case quantifying revenue uplift, cost savings, or retention impact before committing to development
- Leverage AI across the full development loop (requirements analysis, design exploration, implementation, and testing) to move faster and with greater precision
- Identify and develop new revenue streams driven by AI capabilities, evaluated on impact, feasibility, and learning velocity
- Customer Engagement & Commercial Validation
- Engage directly with hospitality customers to understand operational challenges and validate product assumptions
- Measure and report on adoption, satisfaction, and commercial impact of new features
- Support pricing and packaging strategies for product offerings in partnership with Sales and the Managing Director
- AI Innovation Lead Across the Organization
- Lead the cultural shift toward AI-first thinking across the organization: this is about fundamentally changing how people work, make decisions, and solve problems
- Establish clear expectations for AI adoption and embedding AI into day-to-day operating processes across every function and create practical enablement programs that meet people where they are
- Partner with team leaders across the business to set function-specific AI adoption goals, track progress, and create accountability
- Internal AI Transformation
- Audit business functions for high-value automation opportunities and prioritize by impact, feasibility, and learning velocity
- Build and deploy working AI agents and automated workflows that eliminate repetitive manual work. Not plans or recommendations, but live solutions.
- Build AI capability across teams through hands-on enablement
- Define clear success metrics for every internal AI initiative across the business; report measurable outcomes
- Cross-Functional AI Leadership & Organizational Alignment
- Act as the bridge between executive direction and ground-level product and engineering execution
- Collaborate closely with all functions to maintain alignment on product direction and delivery commitments
- Align teams around clearly defined AI business outcomes; influence through credibility, evidence, and shipped results rather than hierarchy
- Communicate product and AI strategy clearly and regularly to all stakeholders
- Represent H&L externally in discussions relating to product capability and AI innovation
- People & Team Leadership
- Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing product team, instilling a culture of ownership, experimentation, and customer-centricity
- Hire, develop, and retain product talent; build a team capable of scaling with the Company's ambitions
- Set clear performance expectations, conduct regular reviews, and actively support career development and progression
- Operate as a founder-like leader: take accountability for outcomes from ideation through to scale
What This Role Is Not
- Not a backlog or roadmap-only role. This role builds, ships, and measures.
- Not a handoff-based product manager. Requirements do not get thrown over the fence to engineering
- Not a requirements writer detached from execution. You move from problem understanding to working solution
- Not an AI theorist or strategist disconnected from commercial impact. Every initiative must demonstrate measurable value
- This is a business transformation role with full commercial accountability. Bias toward action is non-negotiable
Required Skills & Experience Technical & AI Capability
- Demonstrated ability to design, prototype, and ship working AI-enabled solutions in a commercial environment.
- Strong understanding of modern software architecture, APIs, cloud services, and AI/ML technologies and their practical applications
- Experience with agentic workflows, automation tooling, and AI governance frameworks
- Ability to think across systems, integrate multiple workflows, and engage engineering teams with precision
Product & Commercial Acumen
- 8+ years in product management or product leadership in B2B SaaS or enterprise software
- Experience managing both a core product roadmap and client-specific custom development, with the discipline to balance and prioritize across both
- Strong commercial instincts: you build business cases, deprioritize low-ROI work
- Familiarity with hospitality technology, POS systems, or adjacent verticals is an advantage
- Experience driving operational or digital transformation initiatives with measurable commercial outcomes
Leadership & Communication
- Proven ability to drive change in established environments and influence across functions without formal authority
- Able to write a tight spec, run a sprint, hold engineering accountable to timelines, and communicate clearly to clients and executives
- Experience engaging directly with customers or end users; ability to explain AI systems clearly and responsibly
- Strong bias toward action: you ship things, measure them, and improve based on what you learn
Success Profile
- Commercially pragmatic and outcome-driven, motivated by measurable improvement rather than theoretical innovation
- Technically fluent yet business-focused, comfortable moving between a customer conversation and an engineering spec
- A confident decision-maker in environments with ambiguity and competing priorities
- Comfortable working across functional boundaries and influencing senior stakeholders
- A hands-on leader who models the bias toward action they expect from their team
Why Join H&L
This is an opportunity to lead a meaningful transformation within a well-established hospitality technology business at a genuine inflection point. AI has changed what is possible: in how software is built, what it can do for end users, and how businesses like H&L can operate.
The Role Offers
- Direct access to and support from the Managing Director and leadership team
- Real organizational scope: both product and internal transformation sit within this mandate
- A global customer base and a platform with decades of domain depth to build on
- A small, senior team where your decisions have outsized impact
- Competitive compensation and the opportunity to shape how AI is embedded across an entire operating model
#AspireSoftware #H&L
Head of Product Engineering & AI employer: H&L POS
H&L POS is an exceptional employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture, making it an ideal place for Senior Solutions Engineers looking to make a significant impact in the hospitality technology sector. With a strong focus on employee growth, H&L POS offers ample opportunities for professional development and encourages proactive problem-solving, ensuring that team members are equipped to tackle complex challenges. Located in Australia, the company provides a supportive environment where employees can thrive while contributing to meaningful customer outcomes.
