Senior Head Of Product Retail And In Store Job In London

Job Description

Senior Head of Product - Retail and In Store

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: Holborn Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1N 2HT
Contract type: Fixed-Term Assignment
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 19 September 2024
Requisition ID: 254554

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.

Please note - This is a 12 month FTC position

In a Nutshell

In Sainsbury’s Tech, we power the UK’s number 1 multi-channel, multi-brand retailer. Our product teams are made up of inspiring and multidisciplinary individuals who are empowered to solve hard problems in ways our customers love and serve the needs of our business.

The Senior Head of Product (SHoP) is a critical leadership role, accountable for fusing technology strategy at the heart of our retail channel, leading an experienced and talented team of Head of Product Managers. The SHoP leads our Product vision and strategy in our most complex and strategically important domains. Working with senior stakeholders, they oversee the development and management of the product roadmap based on the adopted strategies and visions. The role is inherently cross-functional and works closely with engineering, XD, Retail, and marketing.

The SHoP will typically be responsible for multiple product families that make up an end-to-end journey. The product roadmap will typically be split into outcomes, requiring the SHoP to coordinate multiple Head of Product managers. The SHoP is responsible for spearheading investigation and analyses on the product and product market within their product families, evangelising diverse thinking and taking inspiration for the best possible experiences and trade-offs between what's possible.

The role demands a highly analytical approach and the ability to work effectively in a matrix environment; the SHoP will typically coordinate this matrix. The SHoP is tasked with overseeing the innovation and improvement of the business products as well as the day-to-day activities in such a way that ensures that the product is constantly growing to suit customer needs. The position requires that the occupier be adept at synthesizing various technologies and capabilities into the business products in such a way that consumers will love.

The role needs a commercially connected thought leader, combined with the ability to coach and guide stakeholders and teams to unlock future value. Ultimately, the SHoP is impactful in developing the culture and skillset of the Product organisation, shaping and delivering future value for customers.

As Senior Head of Product for Retail, you are heading up our vision and strategy for both our customers and colleagues across the entire Sainsbury’s store estate. We want you to be bold in transforming our technology, seamlessly connecting experiences together to bring easy and value-adding moments to our customers and colleagues. You have the opportunity to be truly experimental in this role, whilst also balancing the optimisation of our existing technologies and hardware across the estate. We want to step change the underlying architecture that supports our vision, thinking E2E in approach and moving towards the utilisation of shared services to enable more nimble solutions to be developed.

Through your Heads of Product team, you will lead a large team of Product Managers, Senior Product Managers and Group Product Managers who autonomously drive towards the outcomes you collaboratively set, and your role is to coach and help them develop their individual visions while aligning to your future holistic view of product in your area.

Apply now to develop and lead the vision of our stores of the future!

What you need to do:

• Partner with senior leaders of the business to fuse business strategy and technology vision and strategy.
• Develop the vision, strategy, roadmap and backlog for your family of products that make up an end-to-end customer journey; focusing on complete end-to-end customer experiences that deliver multiple strategic priorities, align to our technology strategy and respond to market changes.
• Own the customer and business value, including secure funding, manage budgets and forecasts through the appropriate financial governance process and relevant technology teams for your family of products.
• Spot opportunities across multiple industry verticals, building partnerships outside of the business.
• Take accountability for end-to-end delivery, ensuring work is prioritised across multiple teams and is in line with the business strategy.
• Lead the collaboration with digital designers, other product teams and third parties to launch capabilities and services.
• Work with the Heads of Product to define outcomes whilst setting and defining metrics and the north star for the product family.
• Manage and report post-launch evaluation to validate that products work for customers or colleagues as designed and value is delivered.
• Build, lead, coach and motivate a team of Product Managers; support them with definition of long term priorities.

How I will succeed:

• Be the trusted advisor to business stakeholders.
• Be the champion for product area, determining the right level or type of material to communicate the experience, benefits and long-term vision.
• Maintain a good level of awareness, interest and understanding of the existing and future end-to-end technology stacks/interfaces.
• Ensure that the team maintains a realistic 90-day roadmap, as well as a prioritised and estimated full year backlog.
• Support communication and resolution of live product incidents.
• Maintain a highly collaborative relationship with engineering.
• Collaborate with the Heads of Product and other Product Managers across the business.
• Develop a strong team of product managers, building competency and enhancing the craft within the community.
• Drive the team and their products towards the future organisation aspirations.

What you need to know:

• Extensive knowledge of product/project/technology programme management and relevant disciplines.
• Knowledge and understanding of a retail business and the technology landscape.
• Solid knowledge of the commercial landscape.
• Understanding of Agile and modern engineering team practices.

What you need to show:

• Creating a positive and consistent impact with internal and external audiences.
• Customer focus, including a relentless focus on understanding, anticipating and exceeding their customers' needs.
• Commercial acumen, including understanding of the commercial drivers.
• Strategic vision, including the ability to create, drive and champion a long-term product vision.
• Technical curiosity, including the ability to translate between customer requirements and technology delivery.
• Product processes, including the ability to adapt behaviour to all stages of the Product Lifecycle.
• Demonstrable experience of leading and developing teams, directly and cross-functionally.

We are committed to making Tech a place where people love to work where diverse and engaged teams make a purpose contribution. Sainsbury’s is committed to being the most inclusive retailer, and flexible working including job sharing is welcomed wherever possible.