MSc in Industrial Engineering
Universidade do MinhoGraduated with 17/20. Research focused on project management in Portugal.
Olá 👋
Bridging business, technology and people to build products that matter.
I’m Rui Mendes — a Product Manager with 4+ years of experience turning ambiguous problems into products that actually work. What drives me is that 0-to-1 journey: taking a fuzzy business need and shaping it into something structured, testable, and measurable. My engineering background helps me speak engineering's language without losing sight of the broader product, customer, and business perspective. Outside the day job, I stay hands-on with code and design, constantly exploring how emerging technologies — especially AI — are changing the way products are built.
Professional Experience
Product, consulting and delivery.
Product ownership, roadmap definition, stakeholder alignment and Agile delivery across international environments.
Business Analyst / Product Owner
Markant Gruppe2024 – Present+
Business Analyst / Product Owner
Markant GruppeOwn the product backlog and roadmap for a B2B digital marketplace serving hundreds of enterprise clients across the DACH region.
- Led UX discovery initiatives and delivered a platform navigation redesign, unified notification framework, service audit trail, and Power BI analytics dashboard.
- Collaborate with engineering, design, and business stakeholders to define acceptance criteria, run sprint ceremonies, and ensure on-time delivery.
- Bridge communication between German-speaking stakeholders and international engineering teams to align product vision with technical execution.
Product Manager
Farfetch2022 – 2024+
Product Manager
FarfetchAs a Product Manager in the Marketplace Product area at Farfetch, I led pivotal products in the e-commerce space.
- Identifying new missions and objectives, leading and managing the creation and maintenance of roadmaps and understanding how the team can achieve its goals.
- Coordinating and monitoring the work of the 3 teams to confirm that the scope of work is being followed and within the established deadlines.
- Coordinating the evolution of integration processes and products with the internal technical teams.
- Working in an agile environment with the engineering team throughout the product lifecycle.
- Communicate new products, new features and the flexible roadmap to the relevant stakeholders to maintain alignment between all parties.
- Define key performance indicators and monitor them continuously.
- Focus on the stakeholder, always working to make their experience as seamless and easy as possible.
Associate Advisor
KPMG2021 – 2022+
Associate Advisor
KPMGPosition in the CIO Advisory area, in the Business Resilience team. In this position I was responsible for business continuity management projects (BCM).
- Risk and Impact Analysis
- Recovery Strategies
- Team Assignments
- Communication Guidelines
- Regular Testing and Training
- I was able to implement business continuity plans (BCP) in companies such as Galp and Vodafone.
Project Manager Intern
Accenture2020+
Project Manager Intern
AccentureCurricular internship in IT project management. During this internship, I worked directly with the Scrum Master of a software development team focused on creating a website for the multinational Janssen.
- I had the opportunity to guide the different scrum ceremonies and learn more about agile methodologies.
How I Work
Product principles that guide my decisions.
Select a principle to update the perspective shown on the right.
01 / 06
Start with the problem
I understand the workflow, the user and the underlying constraint before discussing solutions.
Select a principle to explore how I work.My work
Selected products, platforms and capabilities.
Each case study is framed around the problem, the product approach and the outcome.
01Farfetch
DataHub — Ingestion as a Service
Problem
Teams depended on a central platform team for repetitive ingestion work, creating a growing backlog and long lead times.
Approach
Shifted the operating model towards a reusable self-service capability, shaped with stakeholders and three engineering teams.
Impact
Reduced ingestion time-to-market from 32 days to a target of 1–2 days and lowered manual effort by an estimated 85%+.
02Farfetch
Shopify Plugin Integration for Farfetch Marketplace
Problem
Marketplace sellers needed consistent catalogue, inventory and order flows across Shopify and Farfetch.
Approach
Shaped an integration approach around synchronisation coverage, reliability and operational ownership.
Impact
Created a scalable foundation for reducing duplicated catalogue work and improving cross-channel consistency.
03Markant Gruppe
Unified Notification Framework
Problem
Notification use cases were fragmented, creating inconsistent experiences and repeated implementation effort.
Approach
Defined a central framework for message creation, targeting, delivery, preferences and measurable engagement.
Impact
Established a reusable capability for UI and API notifications while improving consistency and delivery speed.
04Markant Gruppe
Marketplace Data History Framework
Problem
Administrators lacked a reliable way to understand what changed, when and by whom.
Approach
Designed a consistent history pattern across services, organisations, users and bookings.
Impact
Improved operational transparency and reduced ambiguity during support investigations.
05Markant Gruppe
Power BI Analytics Dashboard
Problem
Teams relied on fragmented metrics, manual exports and disconnected administrative views.
Approach
Created a consolidated analytics layer with shared KPIs and flexible reporting.
Impact
Provided a single source of truth for operational analysis and product decisions.
06Markant Gruppe
Marketplace UX/UI Navigation Redesign
Problem
Users struggled to move between services and administration areas without losing context.
Approach
Used interviews, workshops and navigation testing to shape a clearer information architecture.
Impact
Made key workflows easier to find and reduced navigation-related support questions by approximately 30%.
07ISEP · Efacec · Do It Lean · OutSystems
EstufaCEC — Award-Winning University Project
Problem
The challenge was to turn an online farming game concept into a credible real-world service.
Approach
Combined market research, business modelling, low-code software and a physical prototype.
Impact
Won the LSIS II university challenge and demonstrated end-to-end product thinking.
AI-Native Product Management
AI accelerates my execution. Product judgement remains human.
AI is embedded across my product workflow, helping me research faster, improve product artefacts, structure decisions and validate ideas before increasing engineering investment.
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Discovery & Research
Tools
ChatGPT · Claude · Copilot
Use cases
- Interview synthesis
- Competitor analysis
- Market research
- JTBD exploration
- Discovery preparation
Outcome
Faster understanding of customer problems and opportunities.
I don't use AI to replace product thinking. I use it to spend less time producing artefacts and more time understanding problems, customers and business outcomes.
Education
Engineering, systems thinking and product research.
BSc in Systems Engineering
Instituto Superior de Engenharia do PortoGraduated with 15/20. Foundations in software engineering, project management and systems thinking.
State of Project Management in Portugal
Universidade do Minho · APOGEP · Portuguese PM ObservatoryNational study using questionnaire design, online data collection, quantitative analysis and comparison between 2021 and 2022 results.
Certifications
Continuous learning.
Product Management 101View credential →Technical Product ManagementView credential →Product Roadmapping (PRC)View credential →Product Strategy (PSC)View credential →ISO 22301View credential →ITIL 4 FoundationView credential →Scrum Foundation ProfessionalView credential →Product Marketing FundamentalsView credential →
English B2 CertificateCertificate available on request
Azure FundamentalsView credential →Let's talk