Senior Product Owner

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Key Information

• Contract type: Permanent
• Reference: 4405
• Team: Product Ownership
• Directorate: TP&O
• Application closing date: Sunday 9th August 2026

All offers of employment are subject to satisfactory right‑to‑work checks. Candidates must be able to demonstrate their right to work in the UK. At the present time TfL is unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Technology Development sits within the Technology, Products and Operations Directorate of TfL, and is at the heart of developing systems to keep pace with the ever‑changing face of London. Our in‑house development teams are responsible for building and enhancing the online, revenue and corporate systems of the future, ensuring that Every Journey Matters.

The Role

As a Senior Product Owner you’ll be accountable for analysing, prioritising and translating complex business requirements into work packages that can be implemented by our Agile development teams. You’ll also be responsible for the creation and management of product backlogs, ensuring that stories you create have sufficient information to keep a development and test team running at maximum efficiency. You’ll evaluate solutions and ensure our internally developed software is of the highest quality, meeting the needs of TfL and our customers. Key tasks will include supporting changes and user acceptance testing, monitoring performance and resolving problems. Building collaborative working relationships with a variety of stakeholders will be crucial to your success, as will your ability to critically evaluate proposed solutions and provide positive and constructive feedback.

As Senior Product Owner you’ll specialise in one of the following product areas:

• Online applications, such as customer portals, apps, mobility platforms etc.
• Revenue applications responsible for the processing of Oyster and Contactless transactions
• Corporate applications, such as CRM tools, asset management and contact centre systems etc.

Key Accountabilities

• Be the product owner for assigned systems within Technology Development as per the principles of Agile software development - e.g. creating and maintaining the product backlog, defining the acceptance criteria, sequencing and prioritisation of stories, ensuring stories are appropriately scoped and that developers have the correct understanding of what is required to be built.
• Be the ambassador and subject matter expert for the product.
• Work with development team to prioritise the product backlog according to business needs, ensuring valuable releases.
• Coordinate with the delivery teams to avoid delivery conflicts in terms of integration and planned releases.
• Provide sponsors and stakeholders with visibility of product development progress.
• Effectively articulate product features and the needs of users and provide development teams with an accurate understanding of what needs to be delivered.
• Collaborate across Technology Development and the wider business to ensure Agile processes are continually reviewed and improvements implemented.

Knowledge

• Thorough understanding of Scrum Agile and Kanban development principles.
• Detailed working knowledge of systems development and implementation.
• Experience in managing and mitigating system risks.
• Commercial awareness, ensuring systems development is aligned with contractual agreements.
• Strong knowledge of customer facing and internal infrastructure and technology trends, particularly those relating to public transport operations.
• A degree in a relevant technology/computer science subject/equivalent technical qualification is desirable.
• Familiarity with using Azure DevOps and Copilot as an agile planning and tracking tool is desirable.

Skills

• Proven ability to analyse complex systems, draw conclusions and produce solutions.
• Proven ability to define and document functional and non-functional system specifications for large, complex systems.
• Proven ability to resolve Client-Contractor conflicts.
• Proven ability to build effective working relations (partnering) with people at all levels inside and outside the organisation.
• Proven ability to influence people at all levels, including negotiating and successfully facilitating joint decision‑making.
• Skilled at multi-tasking and balancing a number of complex work activities including; requirements elicitation and management, interviewing skills, backlog refinement and estimation, prioritisation and acceptance management.
• Strong verbal communication skills including ability to talk through complex information in a way that non‑technical stakeholders can assimilate, as well as being able to present business value descriptions of requirements to a highly technical developer audience.
• Strong written communication skills including ability to produce summary and feasibility reports on complex technical and business issues.

Experience

• Strong previous experience in a Product Manager or Product Owner role in an Agile development team.
• Experience with delivering a product in one of the TfL product categories specified.
• Successful experience in a dynamic environment, handling multiple tasks, ensuring quality on time and to budget.
• Experience or in-depth knowledge of an aspect of the public transport operating business (both operational and non‑operational) desirable.
• Extensive experience and understanding of requirements elicitation, analysis, documentation, and validation.
• Proven track record in stakeholder engagement: enthusing people, maintaining trust and supporting groups to ensure continued participation over time.
• Strong experience of building relationships with, and influencing, a range of people at all levels within and outside the organisation.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to represent the city we serve, which will help us become a more innovative and efficient organisation. Our goal is to make our recruitment as inclusive as possible. We are a disability confident employer who guarantee an interview to any disabled candidate who meets all of the essential criteria.

Benefits

In return for your commitment and expertise, you will enjoy excellent benefits and scope to grow. Rewards vary according to the level of role but mostly include the below:

• Final salary pension scheme.
• Free travel for you on the TfL network.
• Reimbursement of 75% of the cost of a standard class Ticket for National Rail travel from home or 75% reimbursement on a 28-day flexi ticket.
• 30 days annual leave plus public and bank holidays.
• TfL is committed to work‑life balance, operating a hybrid working approach where business and role requirements allow.
• Tax‑efficient cycle‑to‑work programme.
• Retail, health, leisure and travel offers.
• Discounted Eurostar travel.

Hybrid working within this role enables a balance of 50 per cent of time split between the office and home over a 4 week period. Hybrid working arrangements can evolve subject to business requirements. We will make every effort to give you as much notice as possible, however some interviews/assessments could be organised at short notice.

Vetting Process

At Transport for London, safety, trust and fairness sit at the heart of how we recruit. Our Vetting Charter explains the checks we carry out before you join us, helping ensure we create a safe, inclusive and reliable network for everyone who depends on our services. We simply ask that the information you provide is honest and accurate so we can progress your application smoothly. If something doesn’t match or can’t be verified, we may not be able to move forward with your application, but we’ll always treat you with transparency, respect, and clear communication throughout.