Product Owner

Location: Bradford, Chatham, Petersfield or London

Closing Date: Friday 24 May 2024

We are happy for you to be based in Bradford, Chatham, Petersfield or London but please note that occasional travel will be required to our other offices

Working Pattern: Our working style is hybrid, but we recognise the importance of collaborative working with our colleagues often 1 to 3 days per week in one of our offices

Benefits: Discretionary annual bonus, 25 days holiday up to 30 days (depending on service), pension scheme with matched company contributions up to 10%, 1 paid day to ‘give back’, LinkedIn Learning for all

Don’t hesitate to apply for a role even if you don’t meet all the criteria; your unique strengths and eagerness to learn can be just as valuable.

You and Your Team:

As a Product Owner, you will be reporting to the Principal Product Owner. You’ll be an integral part of the team helping it deliver outstanding products. You will develop a thorough understanding of colleagues needs, actively manage stakeholders, and have technical / development experience.

In your day-to-day role, as a Product Owner you will:

You will be responsible for delivering multiple business initiatives by driving Developing Teams and managing their Product Backlogs. Specifically, the Engineering Product Owner will:

• Work with the Digital Product Owner, Business SMEs and Technology & Change stakeholders to understand customer needs and product requirements.
• Collaborate with Digital Product Owners, Project Managers and Delivery Centre Leads to define and align product roadmaps, delivery schedules and capabilities.
• Work with the Digital Product Owner and Business Analysts to define and track release-specific success metrics; Analysing figures, pulling out the insights and making decisions based on data.
• Lead up to 2 Development Teams to deliver against a shared Product Vision and Product Roadmap by actively driving the scrum ceremonies.
• Work with the Scrum Master to ensure the Development Team delivers effectively and efficiently.
• Provide External and Internal customer context to the Development Team and explore creative technical solutions.
• Work with Business SMEs to ensure there is sufficient and effective input into Product Backlogs and Sprint Plans.
• Lead Business Analysts and Technical Architects to help you create the Product Backlog.
• Prioritize and manage the Product Backlog and make informed decisions formed from a strong fact base.
• Take a comprehensive approach to refine and prioritise the Product Backlog considering customer value and other engineering criteria (e.g. technical debt, non-functional requirements).
• Ensure specifications artifacts (e.g. Wireframes, user journey, high-level solution design, Product Backlog,…) are in place for smoothly triggering the Sprint 0 of new business initiatives.
• Plan how to deliver the Product Backlog together with the Development Team
• Actively participate in the Engineering Product Owner community to share best practice and establish a best-in-class way of working.
• Ensure the Engineering SDLC is followed.
• Promote and support a test and learn culture, sharing the findings throughout the business.
• Assist with product troubleshooting and problem resolution as needed in support of the continued success of the services.

What will make you stand out?

• Extensive experience working on a Product Ownership capability
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end SDLC and product management frameworks.
• Significant experience translating large pieces of functionality (product roadmap items / features) into actionable and prioritized user stories.
• Significant experience of working within the SCRUM framework and playing an active role in SCRUM ceremonies.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence and build effective working relationships across all levels of the organisation. Comfortable working with and presenting to senior management and ExCo.
• Strong ability of prioritising work based on both business and engineering factors (e.g. technical debt, non-functional requirements)
• Ability to identify both functional and technical dependencies with other teams
• Ability to confidently articulate the implications of technical debt and techniques for its removal
• Ability to engage in technical discussions with the Development Team to assess potential development paths
• Excellent understanding of APIs, Microservices and SOA
• Experience integrating products with 3rd party services
• Ability to work proactively, independently and autonomously.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner by Scrum Alliance or equivalent organization
• Experience working in Financial Services or Fintech

Desirable skills:

• Experience working in a highly regulated industry (e.g. Pharma, Gaming)
• Experience building data-driven IT products from ideation through discovery, execution and till adoption
• Experience as a Business Analyst
• Experience working with Azure DevOps, JIRA or similar
• Experience working with the Microsoft technology stack and Azure.

The interview process:

• Up to 30minute telephone call with a member of the Talent Acquisition team.
• Up to 1 hour with the hiring manager plus the Lead product owner.
• Final interview with, up to 1 hour with the lead product owner plus another member of the team.

Our average process takes up to 4 weeks but we will always work around your availability. You will have the chance to speak to our recruitment team throughout the process.

As this role involves working within a regulated environment any offer will be subject to satisfactory background checks including criminal record check, credit check, fraud check and employment references.

Your working life: If you prefer to work part-time, we'll make this happen whenever we can - whether this is to help you meet other commitments or strike a great work-life balance. A fear of losing your current working flexibility shouldn't hinder you from applying for new opportunities, which is why we aim to match your existing flexible working arrangements where possible.

Why work for us?

We’re Vanquis Banking Group plc, an FTSE All Share company and a leading specialist bank, established in 1880. We lend responsibly, providing tailored products and services to 1.75 million UK customers through Vanquis, Moneybarn, and Snoop. Our purpose is simple: to deliver caring banking so our customers can make the most of life’s opportunities.

At Vanquis Banking Group we believe in looking after our colleagues, so we do our best to create a rewarding, engaging, and supportive work environment across our various divisions.

We let our colleagues know we appreciate their hard work by offering competitive salaries, benefits, and a Group wide recognition scheme. All colleagues are eligible to join a pension scheme, and, after six months’ service, you can join our ‘Save as you Earn’ and 'Buy as you Earn' schemes.

We offer a range of training and development opportunities to help each of our colleagues maximise their potential, whatever their role. From your first day working with us, we’ll help you settle into your new role and are happy to talk to you about your career aspirations.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Here at Vanquis Banking Group, we embrace everyone’s unique strengths and identities to be themselves at work. Regardless of how you identify yourself, your sexual orientation, martial or civil partner status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national background, faith, disability, or age – your experiences and background help enrich our teams, and most importantly help support our customers in the best way possible. At the end of the day, it's our people that help us to fulfil the reason why we’re here in the first place: to help put people on a path to a better everyday life.

If there’s anything we can do in the recruitment process to help you achieve your best, get in touch. Whether it’s a copy of our application form in another format or additional assistance, we’re available to help. You can contact us at Talent.Acquisition@vanquis.com