Product Delivery Manager in Watford

We’re looking for a Product Delivery Manager to join our Tech Delivery Team. You’ll lead Tech Product Families to facilitate the end-to-end building, ongoing development, and optimization of technology products. You’ll act as the engine of execution, adopting industry-standard Agile methodologies and continuous delivery frameworks to drive high-performing tech teams. You’ll facilitate the proactive execution of tech programs and projects in close collaboration with the Senior Business Owner, multiple Product Owners, engineering teams, project partners/suppliers, and key stakeholders. The role is a champion of proactive delivery management, robust transparent reporting, and seamless cross-functional stakeholder engagement to ensure scalable, resilient, and valuable technology solutions.

What you’ll be doing:

• Tech-Focused Delivery & Execution (Industry Trend Alignment): Lead cross-functional engineering squads through the entire product lifecycle (ideation, development, CI/CD launch, and post-launch optimization) utilizing Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or scaling frameworks as appropriate.
• Roadmap Execution: Own and manage the technical deliverables on the product roadmap, ensuring technical vision aligns directly with business priorities set by the Product Owners and Senior Business Owners.
• Technical Debt & Architecture: Proactively monitor and manage technical debt (both existing and emerging). Implement clear, prioritized remediation plans addressing cost, system reliability, security (DevSecOps), and maintenance to ensure scalable tech platforms.
• Proactive Management & Product Controls: Move beyond tracking by adopting a proactive stance on risk, issue, assumption, and dependency (RAID) management. Identify bottlenecks before they occur and implement robust mitigation strategies.
• Resource Scheduling & Unblocking: Effectively schedule resources across tech teams. Act as the primary servant-leader to unblock engineering teams, minimizing constraints across all related development environments.
• Quality & Standardized Controls: Enforce standardized delivery controls to hit milestones on scope, schedule, budget, and quality, while maintaining the flexibility required for iterative software development.
• Data-Driven Reporting: Establish, track, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). Transition to modern engineering metrics (e.g., DORA metrics - deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, time to restore service) to measure delivery success.
• Automated Dashboards: Champion the use of automated delivery reporting (via Jira, Confluence, or similar tools) to provide real-time, transparent visibility into sprint health, velocity, and release timelines.
• Oversight Framework: Establish and sustain a flexible but effective governance framework, in collaboration with the Head of Product, ensuring appropriate oversight without stifling engineering agility.
• Strategic Stakeholder Management: Work closely with key stakeholders across executives, sales, marketing, operations, and customer support. Proactively gather input, manage expectations, and maintain a steady cadence of progress updates.
• Translating Tech to Business: Act as the crucial bridge between technical teams and business units. Communicate complex product goals, technical constraints, statuses, and outcomes clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Leadership & Motivation: Provide strategic leadership and motivation to the Tech and Business Product Family. Foster a culture of psychological safety, innovation, and continuous improvement within the engineering and product groups.
• Strategic Partnerships: Establish clear, productive relationships with preferred strategic vendors. Influence vendor product roadmaps to meet overarching organizational priorities.
• Performance & Contracts: Manage third-party engineering and delivery teams (including work order creation/tracking). Work with Procurement to establish SLAs and address performance matters with commercial impacts.
• Data-Backed Iteration: Partner with the Product Owner to ensure tech deliverables solve real-world customer problems. Utilize user behavior data, telemetry, and feedback loops to drive product improvements.

What we’re looking for:

You’ll have proven work experience as a Delivery Lead, Delivery Manager, or Technical Product Manager in a complex, dynamic environment. You’ll also be able to demonstrate deep knowledge of software delivery lifecycles, CI/CD pipelines, and modern product engineering methodologies. As well as this you’ll have:

• A strong track record of proactive risk management and implementing clear reporting structures.
• The ability to define, manage, and communicate product roadmaps and delivery plans effectively.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, capable of influencing both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience of managing product/project controls (risk, budget, capacity planning).
• The ability to set up automated reporting and establish flexible governance.
• Ideally your experience will be in the retail domain and you’ll have familiarity with e-commerce or retail tech business processes.
• A technical background with knowledge of cloud platforms, modern architecture (microservices), and technology transformation approaches is highly desirable as is Vendor relationship management and commercial negotiation skills.
• Familiarity with Agile tools (Jira, ADO, Confluence) and engineering metrics (DORA) is also preferred.

What can we offer you?

You’ll be supported with fantastic learning and development and have the opportunity to grow and develop your career with us.

Benefits

• Competitive bonus
• Private Medical and Life Assurance
• Enhanced contributory pension scheme
• Discount platform including savings and cash back at numerous retailers, savings on gym membership, cycle to work scheme

Our widely recognised wellbeing strategy is something we’re proud of at Wickes. As part of this, we offer a range of health and wellbeing benefits and support, including an Employee Assistance Programme, financial education & loans, and access to parental, menopause and fertility support. By giving you the support you need to do well at work, and the flexibility to make life work for you. We are giving you a career that doesn’t put your life on hold. Where you can be yourself, do your best work, and make a positive difference every day.

About Us

Wickes is a multi-channel retailer operating in the home improvement market. With 50 years in industry, Wickes now generates revenue in excess of £1.6bn across 230 stores delivered by 8,000+ colleagues. But it is our culture that is considered our best kept secret; it’s a collaborative, down to earth, fun and inclusive environment where people feel part of a winning team. All our colleagues come from different backgrounds, but what we all have in common is a determination to succeed and a passion for being the best we can be. If that sounds like you, we’ll make you feel right at home. We aim to create an inclusive workplace with colleagues’ wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. We’re a Disability Confident Employer and committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We welcome applications from disabled people and are committed to providing an accessible recruitment process and workplace for everyone. If you require any support or reasonable adjustments, please let us know here.