Product Owner

HelloKindred are specialists in staffing marketing, creative and technology roles, offering a range of talent solutions that can be delivered on-site, remotely or hybrid. Our vision is to make work accessible and people’s lives better by disrupting traditional employment barriers – connecting ambitious talent to flexible opportunities with trusted brands.

Anticipated Contract End Date/Length: November 30, 2026

Work set up: Hybrid

Our client in the Information Technology and Services industry is looking for a Product Owner to lead the VMware Virtualization Engineering POD within a Distributed Compute environment. The role is responsible for defining the VMware product vision and strategy, with a strong focus on automation, availability, reliability, performance, and scalability. This position drives engineering excellence across VMware shared platforms supporting business-critical services, ensuring service sustainability, transformation, and Site Reliability Engineering initiatives are embedded across the team.

What you will do:

• Lead and mentor a team of VMware engineers within the POD structure.
• Manage people performance and support professional development within the team.
• Define and drive VMware product vision and strategy with emphasis on automation, reliability, performance, and scale.
• Design, deploy, and manage VMware technologies including vSphere, vCenter, vROPS, vRO, vRLI, and vRLCM.
• Oversee day-to-day operations, troubleshooting, and performance tuning of the virtual environment.
• Establish and enforce engineering standards and SRE best practices through platform constraints and system modelling.
• Drive automation initiatives using PowerCLI, Python, Ansible, and vRO workflows.
• Collaborate with operations, applications, engineering, connectivity teams, and vendors to deliver infrastructure solutions.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, standards, and best practices.
• Participate in capacity planning, disaster recovery, and business continuity activities.
• Implement monitoring and alerting systems to proactively manage platform health.
• Ensure system availability and performance in line with defined SLAs and SLOs.
• Monitor compliance, mitigate risks using tools such as vRealize Operations, and ensure adherence to regulatory standards and internal policies.
• Manage and improve product offerings throughout their lifecycle using Agile methodologies.
• Assess resource requirements for critical services and support service sustainability and transformation initiatives.
• Communicate product updates, critical incidents, CVEs, and risk items to stakeholders.
• Represent the team in major incident calls and provide technical leadership during crisis situations.
• Plan future capacity needs and optimise system performance through tuning and scaling activities.
• Manage hardware and software lifecycle activities from planning and deployment to maintenance and decommissioning.

Qualifications:

• Minimum fifteen years of total IT experience in large-scale infrastructure environments and at least twelve years of experience in distributed systems including Linux, Windows, high availability solutions, server hardware, and VMware platforms.
• Proven experience managing VMware products including vSphere, vCenter, vROPS, vRO, vRLI, and vRLCM within banking or financial services environments.
• Strong experience leading engineering delivery through automation in large-scale virtualisation infrastructures.
• Deep understanding of network and storage technologies in relation to distributed systems and VMware platforms.
• Proven leadership and team management experience.
• Strong knowledge of Site Reliability Engineering practices and service sustainability initiatives.
• Experience working within Agile delivery environments.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, leadership, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Degree or diploma in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or equivalent experience preferred.

Additional Information:

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. Candidates must be legally authorized to live and work in the country where the position is based, without requiring employer sponsorship. HelloKindred is committed to fair, transparent, and inclusive hiring practices. We assess candidates based on skills, experience, and role-related requirements. We appreciate your interest in this opportunity. While we review every application carefully, only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. HelloKindred is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.