Head of Product & Monetization

YallaPlay Games is a rapidly growing startup building exciting mobile games that connect people together through play. Founded in Austin, Texas, we’ve since expanded to Brazil and the UAE, growing our diverse and talented team of creators. We pride ourselves on a fun and collaborative work environment, with a remote-friendly culture and a dedication to producing high-quality, engaging games. Our current titles, including “Spades Masters” (iOS/Android), have been enjoyed by millions of players globally. 

Our passion lies in reinventing card games infusing them with fresh mechanics, beautiful design, and social features that spark connection and excitement. As we continue to scale, we’re looking for creative, driven individuals who are excited to help shape the future of multiplayer mobile gaming in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

Join us and be part of building something big from the ground up.

We are looking for a Head of Product & Monetization to lead the performance, roadmap, execution, and player experience of YallaPlay’s game portfolio.

Reporting directly to the CEO, you will be responsible for translating the company’s vision and mission into product strategy, game roadmaps, features, LiveOps, visual direction, monetization improvements, and measurable player/business outcomes.

This is a senior leadership role for someone who understands mobile free-to-play games deeply, can manage cross-functional teams, and can operate at both strategic and hands-on levels. You will mainly lead the efforts of Production Operations and  Art functions, ensuring that all teams are aligned around player experience, revenue growth, retention, execution speed, and product quality.

You will not be judged by the number of documents you produce. You will be judged by the quality of decisions, speed of execution, clarity of priorities, team alignment, and the measurable improvement of our games.

This position can be remote or based at our offices in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

• Own the product direction, roadmap, and performance of YallaPlay’s game portfolio, ensuring each game is aligned with the company’s vision, mission, and business goals.
• Translate the CEO’s vision into clear product priorities, roadmap decisions, feature plans, LiveOps initiatives, art direction, and execution requirements.
• Be accountable for key game KPIs, including revenue, ARPDAU, retention, engagement, LTV, conversion, economy health, LiveOps performance, and monetization results.
• Lead the Production, Product, and Art teams directly, ensuring strong performance, clear ownership, execution speed, and accountability.
• Oversee the performance of the Production and Art teams, making sure roadmaps are executed on time, features are delivered properly, art quality is maintained, and team output matches business priorities.
• Guide the design and prioritization of game systems, player journeys, progression, rewards, events, offers, UX improvements, monetization loops, and economy balancing.
• Use dashboards, player behavior data, A/B tests, market research, and competitor analysis to identify opportunities, diagnose problems, and make practical product decisions.
• Ensure LiveOps efforts are structured, measured, and connected to player experience, retention, monetization, and long-term game health.
• Work closely with the leadership team and other leads to align product strategy with technical capabilities, operational needs, business priorities, and company-level goals.
• Build a strong operating rhythm across the department, including KPI reviews, roadmap reviews, sprint alignment, LiveOps planning, art reviews, prioritization meetings, and post-mortems.
• Remove blockers, resolve trade-offs, and make clear decisions around scope, timing, quality, resources, and impact.
• Identify team gaps, process weaknesses, quality issues, and resourcing needs, then drive practical improvements.
• Create a culture of ownership, speed, accountability, direct feedback, and player-focused decision-making.

What you need to have:

• 10+ years of experience in mobile games, with strong exposure to free-to-play product management, production, game design, LiveOps, or game leadership.
• Proven experience leading live mobile games with measurable responsibility for KPIs such as revenue, ARPDAU, retention, engagement, LTV, and conversion.
• Strong understanding of free-to-play systems, game economies, monetization, LiveOps, player segmentation, and retention loops.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort working with dashboards, cohorts, funnels, A/B tests, and player behavior data.
• Ability to translate data into clear product decisions and execution priorities.
• Solid game design judgment, especially around systems, progression, rewards, UX, monetization, and player motivation.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams across production, design, art, engineering, monetization, and/or player support.
• Strong understanding of mobile game production pipelines, Agile workflows, Jira, backlog management, and sprint execution.
• Good eye for art, UI/UX, visual quality, and player-facing polish.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to align founders, leadership, and execution teams.
• High ownership, strong urgency, and the ability to operate in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Fluent English and experience working with multicultural remote teams across time zones.

Strong Advantage:

• Experience in card games, casual games, casino-style mechanics, social games, or real-time multiplayer games.
• Experience managing both product and creative/art functions.
• Experience with VIP/whale player engagement, segmentation, and personalized monetization.
• Experience with AdMon, ad mediation, ad placement strategy, and ad revenue optimization.
• Familiarity with Unity and mobile development pipelines.
• Experience scaling games from soft launch to global launch and live operations.
• Experience working directly with founders or CEOs in a fast-paced startup.

You are not only a strategist. You are an operator.

You know how to look at a dashboard and spot what matters. You can review a roadmap and immediately see what is bloated, weak, or missing. You can sit with artists and discuss visual quality, then move to a KPI review and challenge monetization assumptions. You can tell the CEO what is working, what is not working, and what needs to be done next.

You are comfortable making decisions with incomplete information. You move fast, but you do not move blindly. You are direct, practical, and accountable. You do not wait for the perfect process before taking action.

Most importantly, you understand that a successful mobile game is not built by isolated functions. Product, art, LiveOps, monetization, player support, production, and engineering must all move together.

What You Get

• Real Ownership: You will directly shape the future of our games and product portfolio.
• Executive influence: You will work closely with the CEO and leadership team on company-level product decisions.
• Measurable impact: Your decisions will affect millions of players and core business performance.
• Creative and commercial scope: You will lead across product, game design, production, art, LiveOps, VIP, and AdMon.
• Startup speed: Small team, big ambition, direct communication, and no room for corporate nonsense.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive salary
• Remote-first and flexible schedule- Digital nomad friendly
• Generous paid time off
• Paid birthdays off
• UAE visa sponsorship (if applicable)
• Growth opportunities and access to learning resources
• A team that actually loves games—and each other

Ready to join the team? We’d love to hear from you!

• Apply
• Please include your CV and, where possible, examples of games, products, features, LiveOps, roadmaps, or performance improvements you have led.

We review every application carefully and will be in touch if there’s a fit. Good luck!