Own Brand Systems Product Owner

The Waitrose Own Brand team is responsible for developing and protecting the strategy and design of over 6000 own-label products, including our Essential Waitrose, Cooks' Ingredients, and No.1 Waitrose ranges.

The multidisciplinary Own Brand team includes key roles responsible for product development, brand strategy and technical implementation of creating our Own Brand range.

The Own Brand Systems Product Owner is an exciting new role in which you’ll be enabling better decision making across the Own Brand team. You’ll have 4 Own Brand Coordinators reporting directly to you, and you will report into the Own Brand Reporting Manager. Day-to-day you’ll manage the different applications within Own Brand, managing a clear roadmap to deliver noticeable results and improvements to our systems. You’ll be an expert in how these systems work and how they are integrated in the business, managing governance, upgrades and strategy.

In addition to your contractual pay, any time worked between 22:00 - 06:00 will attract Night Premium at a rate of £5.25 per hour. This will also apply to existing Partners who have enrolled onto Enhanced Hours Premium arrangements.

(Please ignore the night shift premium wording - this is a system error. There is no night working in this role)

• Salary range - £53,000 - £78,000

• Contract type - This position is permanent. 

• Working pattern/flexible working - The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business. The team aims for 3-4 days a week in the office. 

• Location - This role is based at our Bracknell Head Office.

• Interviews - We anticipate a 1 stage interview process in person at our Bracknell campus, 5th August onwards.

Key responsibilities

As a Product Owner, you will be responsible for the technical product ownership of the systems we use in Own Brand, including WPP and other key systems like BazaarVoice. You will lead cross-functional teams to deliver Partnership Data Products. You will own and deliver the Product strategy and Roadmap, delivering end value to the team.

You will manage third-party vendors and external stakeholders, delivering strategic technical priorities. This encompasses managing all elements of systems implementations including risk assessment, implementation of system updates, UAT, glossary management, and issue resolution. You will act as the primary link between the business and the Tech & Change (IT) programme, strategically managing data sources, governance, to resultantly deliver trustworthy data for reporting.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

• Deep knowledge and ability to define Product vision, roadmaps, backlogs that prioritise user needs and the meeting of business goals.

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.

• Skills in data-driven decision making, using metrics to measure product performance and guide continuous improvement.

• Analytical & critical thinking & data manipulation skills (Tableau and Tableau Prep, Google Sheets & Scripts, SQL, Excel) with strong attention to detail, knowledge of Snowflake would be beneficial

• Knowledge of complex data systems and big data

• Strong problem solving skills and tenacity when working through data issues to solution

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills

Desirable skills/experience you may have

• Experience in systems implementation management

• Commercial retail understanding / awareness

• You'll have a good working understanding of SQL, having regularly written queries from scratch to give you the answers to the questions you're asking of the data

• People management experience leading a high performing team

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We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:  

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.  

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview. 

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