Product Owner/Product Manager

Product Owner / Product Manager

12 Month Fixed Term Contract

Up to £80,000 + Benefits | Hybrid (2 Days per week, Central London)

We're working with a well-established retail business that's investing heavily in its technology and operational platforms, and we're looking for a hands-on Product professional to join the team on a 12-month fixed-term contract.

This isn't a traditional Product Manager role focused on strategy, roadmaps and presentations. Equally, it's not a Delivery Manager role centred around governance and Agile ceremonies.

Instead, we're looking for someone who enjoys getting into the detail. Someone who can take a broad business problem, work directly with end users and engineers, and turn it into clear, deliverable work that keeps development moving.

If you enjoy writing user stories, refining backlogs, challenging requirements and solving problems alongside engineering teams, this could be a great fit.

The Role

You'll own one of the business's product domains, supporting the digital tools and platforms used every day by store colleagues and operational teams.

Working closely with Product, Engineering and the wider business, you'll understand how users work, identify pain points and help shape practical solutions that genuinely improve day-to-day operations.

You'll be responsible for:

• Taking high-level business initiatives and breaking them down into clear user stories and technical deliverables.
• Owning and refining the product backlog.
• Writing user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Working closely with engineers to clarify requirements, answer questions and remove blockers.
• Running backlog refinement and prioritisation sessions.
• Spending time with end users to understand how they work and where processes can be improved.
• Balancing quick wins with longer-term improvements.
• Making pragmatic product decisions that deliver real value to the business.

What we're looking for

We're open on background. You could currently be a:

• Product Manager
• Product Owner
• Technical Business Analyst
• Product Delivery Lead

What's important is how you work , not your job title.

You'll ideally be able to demonstrate:

• Experience owning and managing product backlogs.
• Experience breaking down large business initiatives into user stories, tickets and acceptance criteria.
• Confidence working directly with software engineers on a daily basis.
• Experience working with operational teams or end users to understand problems before proposing solutions.
• The ability to work comfortably in ambiguity without waiting for every requirement to be fully defined.
• Strong product judgement and the confidence to challenge requirements where appropriate.
• Experience working within Agile software delivery teams.

Experience within retail, ecommerce or operational technology would be highly beneficial but isn't essential.

About You

You'll probably enjoy this role if you like being close to the detail.

You're the type of person who naturally asks "What's the actual problem we're trying to solve?" before jumping into solutions.

You enjoy sitting with engineers, talking to users, refining requirements and keeping delivery moving, rather than simply coordinating meetings or managing status reports.

If you've ever taken a vague business request and turned it into something an engineering team could confidently build, we'd love to hear from you.