Job Description
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.
Division / Department
Sainsbury's Tech
Reporting to
Head of Product
In a nutshell
At Sainsbury’s we believe that the customer should be at the heart of everything we do, which is why we have put them at the centre of our vision of being there for their customers whenever, wherever and however they want and of serving more of our customers more of the time. Within Sainsbury’s Tech we are one organisation, driving brilliant experiences across all our brands operating in agile teams and working seamlessly together to make the most of the exceptional knowledge, insight and talent that we have across the division. Our product teams are made up of inspired and multidiscipline individuals who are empowered to solve hard problems in ways our customers love and serve the needs of our business.
In your role as a Staff Product Manager you’ll own the vision for some of our most highly complex and valuable products and work actively with multiple teams to make that vision come to life! You will be accountable for developing the strategy for these products and make effective choices to drive maximum value. You will have an infectious passion for your products, partnering with engineering to define, deliver and iterate your products to find creative ways to deliver awesome experiences for our customers.
Sainsbury’s product teams work across Argos, the UK’s 3rd largest general merchandise retailer, Sainsbury’s, the UK’s 2nd largest grocery retailer, Nectar, the largest loyalty programme in the UK as well as Tu clothing, Sainsbury’s Bank and Argos Financial services.
We’re big and that's really exciting when you consider the volume of customers that see your work, but you’ll also ship lots of value to customers, and you’ll be able to learn and iterate quickly to get the best customer experience.
What I need to do
As a Staff Product Manager will:
• Deliver products with the biggest budgets that bring significant value back to the business aligned to corporate strategic pillars.
• You will be accountable for developing the vision, strategy, roadmap and backlog for your product, own the customer and business value, and make effective prioritisation choices to deliver maximum value and return on capital, ensuring we meet our corporate plan commitments.
• Champion for your product – determining the right level or type of material to communicate the experience, benefits and long-term vision across a variety of audiences including development team, stakeholders at all levels, partners and external parties
• Build highly collaborative relationship with engineering and architecture to successfully navigate significant integration complexity or decisioning as you develop your product(s). Influence others with varying priorities to drive alignment and pace.
• Apply insight, data, research, technical product knowledge, to ensure your team are focused on making the biggest difference for customers and the business.
• Manage levels of risk to minimise vulnerabilities and prioritising development by working with complex and sensitive information.
• Champion and prioritise tech standards alongside product features in your and your team’s roadmaps explaining the merits to stakeholders.
• Advocate for agile software development practices with business stakeholders ensuring a good understanding of iterative value delivery.
• Monitor relevant industry trends keeping personal knowledge up to date with the latest developments and innovations pertinent to your product. Build confidence as the subject matter expert for your product, helping to guide future investment.
• Work collaboratively with engineering teams providing expertise to evaluate potential partner relationships; identifying necessary and/or desirable third-party technology to evaluate and select vendors.
• Own your product through the lifecycle, supporting communication and resolution of live product incidents and effectively prioritise, coordinate and communicate the resolution of production issues (bugs)
• Maintain a good level of awareness, interest and understanding of the existing and stacks/interfaces for your product and how to develop these so they work seamlessly for customers and colleagues
What you need to know
• Master level of product management process.
• Proven track record of leading delivery of highly complex technology led change in cross-functional environments; you have shipped products at scale that customers and colleagues love.
• Good level of knowledge and understanding of the end-to-end Supply Chain, with particular emphasis on Logistics and the technology which powers high performing Logistics Operations
• Strong communication and influencing skills, particularly at senior levels
• Working knowledge of technology relevant to Logistics
• Solid understanding of commercial landscape
What you need to show
• High levels of technical curiosity and comfort being in the thick of technically complex discussions to be able to guide and prioritise next steps using product principles.
• Ability to switch between strategic visioning and getting into the detail, being the authority in all aspects of your product
• Strong leadership and influencing skills, adapting your decision making to different levels of ambiguity and urgency; developing an authentic and consistent leadership style based on a robust knowledge of yourself, influencing without authority
• Creating a positive and consistent impact with internal and external audiences; excellent stakeholder management skills, ensuring senior stakeholder advocacy for your product at the highest levels of the organisation.
• Ability to translate business goals, technology strategy and market knowledge into a product roadmap that prioritises delivery of value and enables future business agility
• Excellent communication skills able to articulate complex ideas in an accessible and engaging way.
• Comfortable with significant ambiguity and will guide definition, prioritization, and scope, in concert with your and other cross functional teams to drive business outcomes through exploration.
• You are comfortable in a fast-paced environment where you will set and be held accountable to ambitious goals.
• Consistently engaging and motivating people with a variety of perspectives around the roadmap for your product; facing into difficult conversations and giving others licence to challenge your perspective
• Anticipating risks and opportunities, responding to escalations at pace and coaching others to find solutions based on your expertise
• A high level of team contribution, seek opportunities to provide input and support across the team and outside core areas of focus including contributing to the product community role modelling product and agile processes to get to the best outcomes.
What decisions can I make
• All decisions related to delivering the roadmap for your product(s)
• Prioritisation and significant value return across your product area with multi-million-pound (up to £5m) capital budget
Support we will provide
• Access to personal development tools including industry leader Bitesize talks, online self-development tools, and internal mentoring/coaching
• Internal product expertise and co-learning opportunities within a highly collaborative environment
• Opportunities to attend external events
• Product Technical Competency Framework
#LI-HM1
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).