Digital Product Owner

About Us

At National Grid, we light up the world by harnessing the unique strengths of our people. Join us as a Digital Product Owner to be part of a team that's driving forward the energy transition, creating a brighter, more sustainable future for all. Unleash your superpower and bring energy to life.

National Grid is recruiting a Product Owner into the Network Design Team, taking ownership of the business applications that Network Design teams rely on every day to design, optimise and manage the electricity transmission network for England and Wales. We are looking for an experienced, outcome-driven Product Owner who is passionate about making the applications people use work well for them, and about supporting the UK's transition to a net zero energy system.

We are looking to recruit two positions. Both sit within the Network Design and both report to the Digital Product Manager.

This position is based from our Warwick office however we offer flexible hybrid working options.

Job Purpose

As a member of the extended Product Management function, the PO is the team’s primary customer advocate and primary link to business and technology strategy.

This enables the team to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders while continuously evolving the Solution. The role owns the application backlog and the release roadmap, balancing new functionality against defects, technical debt and vendor-driven change, and works with support teams to keep those applications available, usable and well adopted. It spans the full application lifecycle, from discovery and requirements through delivery, release, live service and continuous improvement.

What You'll Do

The Product Owner supports the Product Management function across the full application lifecycle, the users who depend on those applications, and the stakeholders and suppliers who support them.

Application lifecycle and delivery

• Support in managing the lifecycle of the applications in the portfolio, from discovery and definition through delivery, release and ongoing iteration.
• Own and maintain the application backlog, writing user stories and acceptance criteria and prioritising new features, defects and technical debt against business value and user impact.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies including sprint planning, stand-ups and retrospectives.
• Coordinate user acceptance testing, release readiness, feedback loops and continuous improvement activities.
• Contribute to release notes, user guidance, training materials and stakeholder communications so that changes land well with the people who use the applications.
• Work with solution architects, engineers, developers and testers so that requirements are understood and delivered as intended.
• Support prioritisation by assessing value, risk, complexity, dependency and operational impact, including the effect of a change on users already working in live service.

Live service and application health

• Work with support teams to monitor application performance, incidents and service levels, and feed what they reveal back into the backlog.
• Manage application configuration, release and upgrade cycles, including vendor roadmaps and supported-version requirements where an application is supplied by a third party.
• Understand how the applications are actually used, and combine that evidence with user feedback to inform product decisions and measure outcomes.
• Maintain a strong working knowledge of the application estate, its integrations and its dependencies on upstream and downstream systems.
• Promote adoption of the applications across the business, and identify where training, guidance or usability improvements would raise it.

Stakeholder engagement and user advocacy

• Collaborate with stakeholders across National Grid, Digital and Engineering teams to gather requirements and understand how people use the applications day to day.
• Communicate complex topics in a simple, structured and business-friendly way.
• Facilitate alignment between business users, subject matter experts, product teams, support teams and suppliers.
• Challenge constructively where requirements are unclear, assumptions are weak or value is not defined.
• Support senior stakeholders with concise updates, options analysis and clear recommendations.

About You

The essential criteria below are the minimum required to be considered for the role. The desirable criteria distinguish between candidates who meet that minimum.

Essential qualifications and experience

• Degree or equivalent experience in a relevant field such as business, engineering, information systems or computer science.
• Demonstrable experience of owning or supporting a business application, software product or digital service through its lifecycle.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and with tools such as Jira and Confluence.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary teams.
• Analytical mindset with a strong interest in systems, business process and user-centred design.
• Stakeholder management skills sufficient to engage confidently with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience of working with cross-functional teams including business users, architects, engineers, developers, testers and support teams.

Desirable skills and experience

• A good understanding of product management principles and of the application lifecycle from build through to live service and retirement.
• SAFe Trained/Certified
• Strong understanding of product ownership and business analysis practice.
• Understanding of application integration, APIs, system interfaces and the data that flows between them.
• Familiarity with ITIL or equivalent service management practice, covering incident, problem, change and release management.
• Experience of managing vendor-supplied or COTS applications, including upgrade cycles, licensing and supplier relationships.
• Experience of working on line-of-business applications, engineering or asset management systems, workflow tools or operational decision-support tools.
• Experience in the energy, electricity transmission, or asset and operations sectors.
• Experience of process mapping and of current-state to future-state analysis.
• Experience of supporting governance forums with clear analysis, decision logs and executive-level summaries.

Key attributes

• Genuine interest in the people who use the applications, and in making their working day easier.
• Curiosity and a proactive approach to problem-solving.
• Self-motivated, willing to learn and able to adapt in a fast-paced, agile environment.
• Attention to detail without losing sight of the bigger picture.
• Outcome-focused rather than task-focused.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and able to bring structure to it.

What You'll Get

A competitive salary between £57,000 – £70,000 dependent on capability

As well as your base salary, you will receive

• 26 days holiday, plus eight statutory days, an option to buy extra holiday days, and the option to holiday swap up to 3 bank holiday days 
• An annual performance incentive
• A generous pension scheme, double matched up to 6% of your salary each month. For every £1 you contribute we’ll put in another £2, so if you put in 6%, we’ll add 12% giving a total of 18% to your pension pot
• Life insurance at 10 times basic salary
• Employer funding towards a portion of your Private Medical Insurance.
• You will also have access to a number of flexible benefits such as a share incentive plan, salary sacrifice car and technology schemes, support via employee assistance lines and matched charity giving to name a few.

More Information

The closing date for this vacancy is 16th October. However, we encourage candidates to submit their applications as early as possible and not to wait until the published closing date. National Grid’s recruitment periods can and may vary. We reserve the right to remove this advert or close it to further applications at any point during the recruitment process.

In NGET we are passionate about both operating our network safely and providing highly reliable quality of supply for our customers. At the heart of achieving these outcomes is the effective control and operation of our network.

To find out more about us, please follow the link below:

https://www.nationalgrid.com/electricity-transmission/ 

DE & I statement 

At National Grid, we work towards the highest standards in everything we do, including how we support, value and develop our people. Our aim is to encourage and support employees to thrive and be the best they can be. We celebrate the difference people can bring into our organisation, and welcome and encourage applicants with diverse experiences and backgrounds, and offer flexible and tailored support, at home and in the office.

Our goal is to drive, develop and operate our business in a way that results in a more inclusive culture. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, the innovation from diverse teams & perspectives and business need. We are committed to building a workforce so we can represent the communities we serve and have a working environment in which each individual feels valued, respected, fairly treated, and able to reach their full potential.

Please note that in most cases, National Grid is unable to offer sponsorship for employment under the UK points-based immigration system. As such, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship now or in the future under the UK points-based immigration system. However, in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear and demonstrable need for specialist skills that cannot be sourced from the local labour market, National Grid may consider offering sponsorship. All applications are welcome from candidates who meet these requirements, regardless of race, nationality, or ethnic origin.

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