Senior Technical Product Manager - Argos Financial Services
- Recruiter
- Argos
- Location
- London
- Salary
- Competitive
- Posted
- 08 Dec 2018
- Closes
- 21 Dec 2018
- Sectors
- Banking & Financial Services
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Did you know Argos is the largest UK based online retailer?
With over 60% of transactions going through our website and apps, and 70% of those on mobile devices, Argos is truly a digital first retailer.
Most people in the UK have shopped with us at some point. And most of them will have used one of our digital channels - whether it's Argos.co.uk, our award-winning apps or the custom-designed tablets in our digital stores. Working at Argos, you'll be helping millions of people to get what they want, when they want it... and hopefully raise a smile in the process.
We may be big on the outside... but on the inside we've worked hard to create a culture that feels just like a start-up. If you work here, you'll get the best of both worlds.
So why should you work for us?
Agile working. Everyone says they do agile... but we do it the proper way. That means you'll work to a roadmap but we flex and change direction as needed. If it's right for our customers, it's right for our business.
Tangible results. You'll get stuff live - a lot. Last year we launched 329 new features on our digital channels. That's an average of 1 feature per working day.
Talented teams. We only hire the best - everyone here is an expert in their discipline. So you can trust and learn from them... and we're getting stronger every day.
Co-located colleagues To be genuinely collaborative, we all sit together: PMs, UXAs, UIs, Copywriters, UXR... and yes, our Devs & QAs are on site too!
New technology. We're truly tech-driven. That's why we're already investing in future tech trends like AR, conversational commerce, machine learning and AI.
Real ownership. You're the driving force behind your area. And you'll have just the right balance of autonomy and support to make it a success.
What does product management do in Argos Digital?
As a product manager at Argos you own the vision for your area or domain and work actively with many teams to make it come to life!
Your goals are to constantly deliver value for customers by defining and delivering new initiatives that find creative ways to overcome daily customer challenges.
That's really exciting when you consider the volume of customers that see your work. You're not on your own though - to balance it out we have a large product family, much like having lots of siblings who can share their past experiences and knowledge!
You'll ship a lot of things, and you'll learn and iterate quickly to get them right.
We have our own in house research lab so we can get real customer feedback before pushing ideas to development.
And when we do come to ship you'll have a number of options for rollout and MVT testing that allow us to gauge real customer performance and ramp up in a safe way
We focus on our product culture so that the important business priorities don't overshadow how we get things done, and how we work with each other. Oh and then there's Cookie Fridays...
We're investing heavily into technology and growing the number of people based in our Victoria office from 300 to 450!
About this specific role:
In this role, you'll define and deliver our roadmap for technical services supporting the Financial Services business. The key focus is on helping our customers find and access the great financial products we offer, whether it is recommending an extended warranty product for that must have tech gadget or helping to redecorate and get the living room look they want using our flexible credit offers.
Your work and the services you own will drive experiences that customers see across all of our digital channels (web, app, store) and you'll get to champion these changes with other teams working together to make sure what customers see is on point.
You will own key components in our architecture including but not limited to: PCMS (Product Care Micro Service), CPMS (Credit Plan Micro Service) and associated tools for colleagues to manage the rules and data.
This role will focus on improving:
* Access to product cares digitally - supporting the sale of these digitally to customers who want to buy care when collecting their order or pay monthly (as a more affordable payment type)
* Display of the right credit offers to customers - contextualising the category and price of the product the customer is looking at to return the best possible credit offer
* Integrating apply now and buy engine - into the digital checkout process so that customers can access credit immediately on their basket when they collect, or have it home delivered across all our digital channels
* Personalising financial services messages - providing the right message to show to customers based upon customer insight from onsite shopping behaviour, existing credit account status / balance and their likely hood to want and take up credit as a new customer
About you:
* You've likely worked in a digital environment before when you've gained significant experience of the challenges and pitfalls of managing scale
* You will have experience explaining technical solutions and benefits to non-technical teams and executives
* You've worked with the likes of Jenkins and JSON before, you can outline what they do, how they work, and most importantly that they aren't actual people!
* You're capable of challenging, and being challenged, on a numerate basis to ensure decisions are well founded and tested
* You have an eye for detail and uncompromising focus on the best possible standards and customer experience
* You understand the value or relationship building in providing a long-term path of continued success
* You apply insight, data, research, and well-honed judgment to ensure you're focused on making the biggest difference for customers
* You understand how to engage teams using legacy processes and get buy in for your vision so they can operationalize and adopt the changes you make
* You have a willingness and humility to take a setback, dust yourself off and come back ready to learn in an ever changing atmosphere You will have some experience in a relevant digital industry and are fully aware of what product management is and the methodologies we use
* An awareness of UX and its role in improving experience for users and optimising their day to day activities for maximum output
Responsibilities:
* Engage BU stakeholders as key partners in delivering change in fundamental content processes
* Build and curate the backlog for your teams, leading them through the process from vision to solution to delivery
* Define best practices/workflows for creating, vetting, publishing and mapping data to consumers and the end customer
* Coordinate cross-functional projects with a broad range of product owners, subject matter experts, system architects/engineers, etc.
* Monitor relevant industry trends and engage in both internal and external teams as appropriate to build shared insight
* Evangelize the benefit of high quality and customer centric data across Sainsbury's Argos
Education & Experience
* Degree educated in a data focused technical discipline (Masters level preferred) or equivalent professional experience
* Five-plus years of experience in product management in a digital industry
* Experience developing, managing, integrating and mapping data from various sources so they are fit for purpose from multiple consumers
* Working knowledge of different financial products (cares, credit card, FPP etc)
* An understanding of what characteristics of different products drive different content needs
* Experience implementing/complying with industry metadata standards
Skills & Abilities
* Strong project management skills and experience leading large complex projects or new process initiatives related to metadata solutions
* Ability to collaborate and effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
* Strong analytical skills to capture user needs/epics and transform them into business solutions
* Experience in omni-channel e-commerce environments a plus
* Strong networking skills
* Ability to research current trends and technology and apply information to ongoing or proposed initiatives
* Ability to assess technology impact on process efficiency and implement on internal workflows
* Passion for driving innovation and change management
* Great team player
With over 60% of transactions going through our website and apps, and 70% of those on mobile devices, Argos is truly a digital first retailer.
Most people in the UK have shopped with us at some point. And most of them will have used one of our digital channels - whether it's Argos.co.uk, our award-winning apps or the custom-designed tablets in our digital stores. Working at Argos, you'll be helping millions of people to get what they want, when they want it... and hopefully raise a smile in the process.
We may be big on the outside... but on the inside we've worked hard to create a culture that feels just like a start-up. If you work here, you'll get the best of both worlds.
So why should you work for us?
Agile working. Everyone says they do agile... but we do it the proper way. That means you'll work to a roadmap but we flex and change direction as needed. If it's right for our customers, it's right for our business.
Tangible results. You'll get stuff live - a lot. Last year we launched 329 new features on our digital channels. That's an average of 1 feature per working day.
Talented teams. We only hire the best - everyone here is an expert in their discipline. So you can trust and learn from them... and we're getting stronger every day.
Co-located colleagues To be genuinely collaborative, we all sit together: PMs, UXAs, UIs, Copywriters, UXR... and yes, our Devs & QAs are on site too!
New technology. We're truly tech-driven. That's why we're already investing in future tech trends like AR, conversational commerce, machine learning and AI.
Real ownership. You're the driving force behind your area. And you'll have just the right balance of autonomy and support to make it a success.
What does product management do in Argos Digital?
As a product manager at Argos you own the vision for your area or domain and work actively with many teams to make it come to life!
Your goals are to constantly deliver value for customers by defining and delivering new initiatives that find creative ways to overcome daily customer challenges.
That's really exciting when you consider the volume of customers that see your work. You're not on your own though - to balance it out we have a large product family, much like having lots of siblings who can share their past experiences and knowledge!
You'll ship a lot of things, and you'll learn and iterate quickly to get them right.
We have our own in house research lab so we can get real customer feedback before pushing ideas to development.
And when we do come to ship you'll have a number of options for rollout and MVT testing that allow us to gauge real customer performance and ramp up in a safe way
We focus on our product culture so that the important business priorities don't overshadow how we get things done, and how we work with each other. Oh and then there's Cookie Fridays...
We're investing heavily into technology and growing the number of people based in our Victoria office from 300 to 450!
About this specific role:
In this role, you'll define and deliver our roadmap for technical services supporting the Financial Services business. The key focus is on helping our customers find and access the great financial products we offer, whether it is recommending an extended warranty product for that must have tech gadget or helping to redecorate and get the living room look they want using our flexible credit offers.
Your work and the services you own will drive experiences that customers see across all of our digital channels (web, app, store) and you'll get to champion these changes with other teams working together to make sure what customers see is on point.
You will own key components in our architecture including but not limited to: PCMS (Product Care Micro Service), CPMS (Credit Plan Micro Service) and associated tools for colleagues to manage the rules and data.
This role will focus on improving:
* Access to product cares digitally - supporting the sale of these digitally to customers who want to buy care when collecting their order or pay monthly (as a more affordable payment type)
* Display of the right credit offers to customers - contextualising the category and price of the product the customer is looking at to return the best possible credit offer
* Integrating apply now and buy engine - into the digital checkout process so that customers can access credit immediately on their basket when they collect, or have it home delivered across all our digital channels
* Personalising financial services messages - providing the right message to show to customers based upon customer insight from onsite shopping behaviour, existing credit account status / balance and their likely hood to want and take up credit as a new customer
About you:
* You've likely worked in a digital environment before when you've gained significant experience of the challenges and pitfalls of managing scale
* You will have experience explaining technical solutions and benefits to non-technical teams and executives
* You've worked with the likes of Jenkins and JSON before, you can outline what they do, how they work, and most importantly that they aren't actual people!
* You're capable of challenging, and being challenged, on a numerate basis to ensure decisions are well founded and tested
* You have an eye for detail and uncompromising focus on the best possible standards and customer experience
* You understand the value or relationship building in providing a long-term path of continued success
* You apply insight, data, research, and well-honed judgment to ensure you're focused on making the biggest difference for customers
* You understand how to engage teams using legacy processes and get buy in for your vision so they can operationalize and adopt the changes you make
* You have a willingness and humility to take a setback, dust yourself off and come back ready to learn in an ever changing atmosphere You will have some experience in a relevant digital industry and are fully aware of what product management is and the methodologies we use
* An awareness of UX and its role in improving experience for users and optimising their day to day activities for maximum output
Responsibilities:
* Engage BU stakeholders as key partners in delivering change in fundamental content processes
* Build and curate the backlog for your teams, leading them through the process from vision to solution to delivery
* Define best practices/workflows for creating, vetting, publishing and mapping data to consumers and the end customer
* Coordinate cross-functional projects with a broad range of product owners, subject matter experts, system architects/engineers, etc.
* Monitor relevant industry trends and engage in both internal and external teams as appropriate to build shared insight
* Evangelize the benefit of high quality and customer centric data across Sainsbury's Argos
Education & Experience
* Degree educated in a data focused technical discipline (Masters level preferred) or equivalent professional experience
* Five-plus years of experience in product management in a digital industry
* Experience developing, managing, integrating and mapping data from various sources so they are fit for purpose from multiple consumers
* Working knowledge of different financial products (cares, credit card, FPP etc)
* An understanding of what characteristics of different products drive different content needs
* Experience implementing/complying with industry metadata standards
Skills & Abilities
* Strong project management skills and experience leading large complex projects or new process initiatives related to metadata solutions
* Ability to collaborate and effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
* Strong analytical skills to capture user needs/epics and transform them into business solutions
* Experience in omni-channel e-commerce environments a plus
* Strong networking skills
* Ability to research current trends and technology and apply information to ongoing or proposed initiatives
* Ability to assess technology impact on process efficiency and implement on internal workflows
* Passion for driving innovation and change management
* Great team player