Fixed-Term Assignment – 12 month FTC

In a nutshell:

Joining Sainsbury's Tech means becoming part of a dynamic and innovative organisation that powers the UK's leading multi-channel, multi-brand retailer. Our Product teams are made up of inspired and multi-discipline individuals who are empowered to solve hard problems in ways our customers and colleagues love and which serve the evolving needs of our business.

Heads of Product (HoP) play a critical leadership role at Sainsbury’s and are expected to create, drive and deliver their vision for their relevant product domain to support our overall business strategy. The Head of Product for Retail Operations will be relentlessly focussed on improving the day-to-day experience for our colleagues across Store Operations and Property domains through development of new and/or better tools to complete task, primarily driving colleague ESAT, productivity and efficiency outcomes. Today our colleagues have to navigate over 40 systems/applications to complete their job – you will be pivotal in improving the experience of our c.150,000 colleagues every single day and, ultimately, better-supported and productive colleagues will unlock better shopping experiences for customers in our stores.

Who you are:

You are an expert in stakeholder management and story-telling, experienced in using outcome-based thinking and data to prioritise roadmaps and empower and support your team. You are commercially astute and can balance ROI against desirability, viability, feasibility and longevity of a product. You understand the importance of simplification and scaling. You are very comfortable working at the pace a retail business requires.

You will be an experienced people leader, who loves to coach and develop your team, setting stretching goals and giving open, honest and supportive feedback to colleagues to help them realise their full potential. You thrive on delivering through your wider team.

What I need to do:

• Ongoing development of the Product vision and strategy for Retail Operations, bringing together multiple products into a single coherent view that supports delivery of Next Level Sainsbury’s and beyond
• Manage the Retail Ops roadmap and backlog which balances the development of new features, with activity to improve service stability and security, reduce tactical solutions and technical debt and decommission legacy tech
• Lead and coach your wider team to deliver the vision of their Products and deliver value that contributes towards our strategic business goals
• Ensure teams are leveraging common thinking and technologies, enabling continual opportunity exploitation and market comparison
• Set and define outcomes and metrics for their principal area/s
• Keep abreast of opportunities in the market within your domain and work closely with teams across Transformation and Retail to maintain a future horizon view of opportunities
• Refine and optimise within defined capital and request support on priority or capacity contention
• Work across divisions to shape dependent roadmaps and features, escalating where prioritisation trade off’s are needed across teams
• Build strong relationships up to DD level to engage on the visions/roadmaps for their principal product areas
• Contribute and coach better product across the division using product competency and internal frameworks
• Take the lead to trial and embed new practices, principles and tools
• Nurture talent in your team and foster a high-performing, high-trust culture
• Cultivate, develop and maintain 3rd party supplier relationships where relevant

How I will succeed:

• Be the champion for product area, determining the right level or type of material to communicate the experience, benefits and long-term vision across a variety of audiences including development teams, stakeholders at all levels, partners and external parties
• Be the arbitration and escalation point for prioritisation and trade offs within their product area to deliver the maximum value and return on capital.
• Maintain a good level of awareness, interest and understanding of the existing and future end-to-end technology stacks/interfaces, including communicating clearly and coaching others on where and how to develop these technologies so they work seamlessly for customers and colleagues
• Ensure that the team maintains a realistic 90-day roadmap, as well as a prioritised and estimated full year backlog, regularly communicating progress and proactively managing risks/issues to remove blockers. Support the team in understanding future risks to mitigate.
• Support communication and resolution of live product incidents and effectively prioritise, coordinate and communicate the resolution of production issues
• Maintain a highly collaborative relationship with engineering, support at all levels for teams to understand and work together to solve problems for our customers and the business
• Collaborate with the Director of Product, Senior Head of Product and other Heads of Product to ensure consistency, drive overall strategic business outcomes/shared objectives, and continuously improve product management across the division
• Develop a strong team of Product Managers, building thecompetency and enhancing the craft within the community. This includes developing a culture of learning, empowerment, experimentation and collaboration
• Drive the team and their products towards the future organisation aspirations, through constructive challenge and thought leadership, fostering a culture where our customer ambition inspires the team to aim high and deliver at pace
• Contribute and lead within the Product Community of Practice

What I need to know:

• Knowledge and understanding of a retail business and the technology landscape
• Knowledge and understanding of operational retail systems and the challenges that face large organisations with hundreds of stores, thousands of colleagues and millions of customers
• Understanding of Agile delivery and modern engineering team practices
• Knowledge of technical product development principles and methodologies

What I need to show:

• Commercial acumen, including understanding of the commercial drivers that determine the viability and longevity of a product, the ability to determine return on investment and use this insight to inform prioritisation, taking market context into consideration
• Customer focus, including a relentless focus on understanding, anticipating and exceeding their customers' needs and the ability to collaborate effectively with customers and stakeholders
• Data driven, including a drive for the use of product metrics to prioritise a roadmap effectively and the ability to use data and insight appropriately to make informed decisions whilst mitigating for any possible limitations and/or risks of misinterpretation
• Product processes, including the ability to adapt behaviour to all stages of the Product Lifecycle, a deep understanding of delivery approaches and when to use them, a focus on prioritisation of outcomes over outputs, the ability to motivate teams working within constraints and a drive to continually improve ways of working
• Strategic vision, including the ability to create, drive and champion a long-term product vision in line with a business strategy, the capability to anticipate the implications of how a product vision could interplay with a wide range of teams and the ability to drive collaboration with others to deliver effectively
• Technical curiosity, including the ability to translate between customer requirements and technology delivery, the desire to engage in technical discussions and challenge teams, the ability to use of a variety of techniques to develop understanding of the tech landscape and customer expectations of technology as relevant to a product or industry
• Creative problem solving, enthusiasm for delivering change through people and technology
• Ability to switch between strategic visioning and getting into the detail, being the authority in all aspects of the product area
• Creating a positive and consistent impact with internal and external audiences; excellent stakeholder management skills, ensuring senior stakeholder advocacy for your product families
• Demonstrable experience of leading and developing teams, directly and cross-functionally
• Strong communication and influencing skills across the organisation at all levels
• Success in delivering in multiple product teams across different stages of the customer journey

Resources available to me:

• Team of up to 12 Product Managers (C4 & C5 grades)
• £Multi-million capex budget
• Product Community of Practice
• Large team of dedicated and matrixed resources
• Learning and development within Sainsbury’s
• Internal product expertise and co-learning opportunities within a highly collaborative environment

What decisions I can make:

• All decisions related to delivering the roadmap for your area of products
• Product Manager resourcing across your product area
• Prioritisation and value return across the product family with £multi-million capital budget

Other benefits:

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. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

• Colleague discount across our multi-brands – Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat – 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
• Holiday allowance, with option to buy additional holiday
• Performance-related Bonus scheme
• Pension plan
• Company car cash allowance
• Other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers

Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.

We are committed to making Sainsbury’s Tech a place where people love to work where diverse and engaged team make a purposeful contribution. Sainsbury’s is committed to being the most inclusive retailer, and flexible working including job sharing is welcomed wherever possible. In Tech we welcome such conversations and are proud to champion a diverse and inclusive culture.

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