Technical Product Owner – 12-month Fixed Term Contract in Knutsford

hackajob is collaborating with Barclays to connect them with exceptional professionals for this role. Join us as a Technical Product Owner on a 12-month contract within the Digital Platform Engineering team. This is an exciting opportunity to lead key initiatives and mentor other Product Owners in story writing and delivery practices. The primary focus is Open Banking, with the next phase of delivery about to begin. You will play a key role in enhancing the bank’s software resilience, working on software switching capabilities and driving adoption of modern, scalable technology solutions.

To Be Successful In This Role, You Should Have:

• Ability to define and communicate a clear API product vision that aligns with business objectives and user needs.
• Proven experience managing an API product backlog, writing clear user stories, prioritising work based on business value, and collaborating with engineering teams throughout the product lifecycle.
• Developer experience focused, with a strong understanding of what excellent API consumption looks like, including high-quality documentation, smooth onboarding, clear versioning, and ongoing support to ensure successful adoption and long-term engagement.

Some Other Highly Valued Skills May Include:

• Knowledge of RESTful APIs, OpenAPI specifications, and authentication methods.
• Ability to translate technical API features into business value and manage relationships with internal API consumers.
• Familiarity with SAFe, Lean Portfolio Management, or Lean product development to align API product delivery with broader organisational priorities.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in the role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills. The successful candidate can be based in Knutsford (Radbroke Hall) or Manchester (4 Piccadilly Place).

Purpose of the role:

To collaborate with product owners and other technical teams involved in the product development process and utilise their knowledge of the bank’s technologies to enact the vision defined in the product roadmap.

Accountabilities:

• Provision of subject matter expertise to support collaboration between the product owner and the technical side of product development.
• Support the development and implementation of the product strategy and vision defined in the product roadmap and communicate them with the relevant stakeholders and the development team.
• Collaboration with internal stakeholders to gather and prioritise product requirements and features based on business value and feasibility that are well defined, measurable and secure.
• Development and implementation of assessments to ensure continuous testing and improvement of product quality and performance.
• Monitoring of product performance to identify opportunities for optimisation that meets the bank's performance standards.
• Stay abreast of the latest industry technology trends and technologies, to evaluate and adopt new approaches to improve product development and delivery.

Vice President Expectations:

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures.
• If managing a team, define jobs and responsibilities, plan for the department’s future needs and operations, counsel employees on performance and contribute to pay decisions. May lead specialists to influence department operations, balancing short and long-term goals and ensuring budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements.
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, demonstrate leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: Listen, Energise, Align, Develop others.
• For individual contributors, be a subject matter expert within own discipline and guide technical direction, leading multi-year assignments and guiding team members through structured assignments. Train, coach and provide information affecting long-term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross-functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate understanding of the organisation’s functions to contribute to achieving business goals.
• Collaborate with other areas of work to keep up to speed with business activity and strategies.
• Create solutions based on analytical thought, evaluate complex alternatives, and define problems to develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships with internal and external stakeholders to accomplish key objectives.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship, and the Barclays Mindset – Empower, Challenge and Drive.