Senior Product Manager - GDS - G7

Location

Manchester

About the job

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government — we are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

GOV.UK App

The GOV.UK App is a new channel for GOV.UK, complementing the existing website. The app combines mobile-native features with AI technologies and functionality provided by other GDS products to offer a proactive and more personalised experience of GOV.UK on your phone. The app makes it easier for citizens to interact with government and helps government offer more proactive support to citizens.

Job description

Products & Services Directorate

The GOV.UK App team is part of the Products & Services Directorate (P&S) within GDS which is responsible for the GOV.UK App and common component products that provide shared systems, technology and processes, making it quicker and cheaper to build great public services that are consistent for users:

• GOV.UK App: building a personalised and proactive relationship with users, making it easier to interact with government 
• GOV.UK Pay: enabling public bodies to take online payment
• GOV.UK Notify: allowing public sector organisations to easily send high volume emails, text messages and letters to users
• GOV.UK Forms: a digital form builder which allows anyone in government to easily create accessible online forms in minutes, without technical knowledge

As a Senior Product Manager, you will lead a cross-functional squad through the entire product lifecycle—from discovery and definition to delivery—ensuring work meets agreed acceptance criteria and is delivered with the highest quality. 

You will maintain close collaboration with stakeholders as well as digital and data leads to track progress, resolve blockers, and escalate issues as needed. Leveraging your strong product skills and technical understanding, you’ll assess feasibility with engineering partners, champion user and business needs, and ensure alignment with strategic goals.

As a Senior Product Manager you’ll:

• manage products and lead teams working in a high degree of uncertainty and complex delivery environment
• create long-term plans that address dependencies and other risks, but also respond to change and strike a balance between developing new features and upgrading existing systems
• work across multiple teams, coordinate product development with other product teams to anticipate problems, minimise risks and and manage dependencies
• motivate and inspire your team(s) to deliver high quality work; demonstrate a passion, enthusiasm and deep understanding of how to set a common vision and help an organisation align
• identify and develop product principles, agile practices and processes to allow teams to collaboratively build the right thing, the right way
• engage with senior stakeholders, users and suppliers to achieve the best outcomes and business objectives
• support the required financial and commercial work, including business cases, benefits and pricing models, procurement processes, to deliver the product strategy
• line manage, coach and mentor other product managers
• champion best practice and the latest in product management tools/techniques

Person specification

We’re interested in people who:

• have experience of successfully developing and releasing digital products with proficiency in agile product management techniques, such as: roadmaps; prioritisation; creation of user stories; MVP definition; using research, analytics and insight to inform decisions; planning at different horizons
• understand the variety of disciplines involved in digital delivery, including engineering, user centred design and research, performance analysis and data science, developed through working in multidisciplinary teams
• successfully engaged with users to improve their products, commissioning research and turning qualitative and quantitative insight into product improvements
• successfully handled a range of stakeholder relationships to successfully deliver products that meet user needs and deliver business outcomes
• have exemplary communication skills that can be used to influence, or reconcile differences between, senior stakeholders and teams using user or data evidence
• evaluate return on investment/value for money on different approaches
• can use data and analytics to spot problems with, and evaluate success of, new features or any experiments
• can devise communication strategies and engagement plans that drive adoption at the right pace for current confidence levels
• have experience in a range of delivery teams, lifecycle phases and products, and an ability to adapt their approach accordingly