Student Solutions Product Owner

About us: The Product Chapter is a vertical team of Product Managers and Product Owners delivering value right across all horizontal value streams at King's. Nested within IT Digital Solutions we work closely with Product roles across King's for digital products as well as our partners in the Agile Centre of Excellence, Enterprise Architecture, Business Analysis, Delivery and Build. Together as a chapter we mature our service and develop Product Management and a product mindset at King's. About the role: This role is focused in the Student Value Stream specifically for SITS. The Product Owner plays a key role in shaping and delivering value through PBIs (User Stories) ensuring Business Features are delivered to schedule per PI Planning. Reporting to the Product Manager, they ensure products and services are strategically aligned, technically robust, and user-focused in line with PM and BO priorities. The Product Owner role is essential to translating strategic intent into deliverable outcomes for the SITS platform. With a backlog of over 70 enhancements , there is a critical need for dedicated ownership of prioritisation, requirements definition, and day-to-day backlog management to ensure delivery aligns with user needs and institutional priorities. This role will work closely with stakeholders to define, refine, and prioritise requirements, ensuring that delivery addresses real operational challenges and improves the student and staff experience. It enables effective sprint-level execution by providing clarity to delivery teams, reducing rework, and maintaining a continuous flow of value. The Product Owner is key to reducing reliance on manual workarounds, improving data quality, and enabling scalable processes as the SITS platform continues to provide functionality across the university. It ensures that delivery is responsive, user-centred, and aligned to the broader Product strategy and Strategy 2030 objectives. The role is a Product Owner within an agile team. In the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), the Product Owner (PO) plays a crucial role in maximising the value delivered by the Agile team. The PO is responsible for defining user stories with the team and prioritising the team backlog to ensure alignment with customer and stakeholder needs. Being the content authority of Team Backlogs, they will prioritise work within Sprints and accept completion of PBIs. They will work with both business and IT stakeholders as well as being part of Dynamic agile teams and will be comfortable working on multiple workstreams. Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Define and prioritise the Team backlog to ensure alignment with customer and stakeholder needs as defined within Features.
• Define PBIs to ensure they clearly define acceptance criteria to meet business value or enable the ability to deliver business value defined in the parent Features
• Collaborate with the Product Management team to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Maintain clear communication between other Product Owners; the business and the development team, ensuring that complex information is conveyed clearly and precisely.
• Participate in key ceremonies such as PI Planning, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives.
• Interpret and assess customer needs, identifying trends and generating original ideas.
• Expertise in working with others in a cross-functional, multi-team environment.
• Work with leadership to enhance and implement better processes and ways of working
• Regularly network to create and sustain long-term relationships, both internally and externally, to influence events and deliver outcomes.
• Commit to ongoing professional development to stay current in product ownership best practices, data management trends, and Agile delivery methodologies. This is a full time (35 hours per week) post and you will be offered a fixed-term contract until 31-July-2027. The role is based in Lavington Street with flexible working to suit the team. About you: To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience: Essential criteria Extensive demonstratable experience as a Product Owner or Business Analyst, with proven skills in requirements gathering, backlog refinement, and prioritisation in a data or integration environment Understanding of Agile Methodologies and experience in backlog management Delivery of show and tells and presentations to a varied stakeholder group Proficiency of management of competing stakeholder, technical and service priorities Ability to articulate ideas to both technical and non-technical audience Excellent stakeholder management skills, building strong relationships across cross-functional teams and external partners Ability to self-organise and detail oriented Desirable criteria Experience in working within a SAFe Agile Environment Product Owner or other Scrum Certification Experience of working In Azure DevOps Knowledge of working with multiple stakeholders and balancing needs Experience in HE, particularly Student Services Downloading a copy of our Job Description Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process. Further information: At King's, we believe that the diversity of our community and a culture that is welcoming, open, inclusive and collaborative, are great strengths of the university. We welcome your thoughts on how organisations can create an inclusive environment, including one which supports free speech and the exchange of a wide range of ideas. We are committed to free speech and to academic freedom, believing that our foundational purpose as a university, is to create spaces where a wide range of ideas, including ideas that are controversial, can be discussed and debated, and where members of our community can express lawful views without fear of intimidation, harassment or discrimination. When engaging in the robust exchange of ideas, we ask that our community is mindful of our Dignity at King's guidance. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job description. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible. Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving rapidly, and we recognise its growing role in professional work. Applicants may use AI tools to support preparation of their application, for example to research the role or structure written responses. However, applications must reflect the applicant's own work and experience. AI tools should not be used during interviews or assessment activities unless this has been agreed in advance as a reasonable adjustment. Further guidance on the use of AI in recruitment can be found here. We reserve the right to close adverts early due to the volume of applications we receive. While the closing date may change, all adverts will close at 23:59 to allow sufficient time for applications to be submitted on that day. To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit' pages. Interviews are due to be held in October 2026.