Product Owner

Description:

XPS Group IT provides IT services to all XPS offices located across the UK and Ireland. XPS currently employs over 2000 employees across multiple business areas.

This role sits within the IT Development and Delivery team (part of XPS IT); a centralised technical team that specialises in the management and maintenance of the core software used to deliver pension services to XPS customers and clients.

We develop software in-house that we can tune to our own processes to give ourselves a competitive advantage. We run a development team that is focused on pragmatic approaches to real business needs.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Product & Solution Leadership
 

• Own the end-to-end product lifecycle for the Advisory platforms (Actuarial & Investment), from discovery through to delivery and live service operation.
• Provide technical oversight of solution direction, ensuring all designs align with defined principles including Azure-first, Serverless-first, API-first and event-driven integration.
• Act as a design checkpoint for engineering teams, validating that proposed solutions follow agreed Azure reference patterns and avoid unnecessary complexity or technical debt.
• Collaborate with developers to shape solutions while ensuring consistency across the platform.
   

Azure Architecture Alignment
 

• Maintain strong working knowledge of Azure services and ensure their appropriate use, including API Management, Azure Functions / App Services, and Service Bus / event-driven patterns.
• Enforce standard integration, security, and data access patterns.
• Work with external or internal architecture support (where required) to ensure alignment to wider enterprise standards.
   

DevOps & Delivery Model Ownership
 

• Own and evolve the Azure DevOps delivery process, including backlog structure and refinement, flow optimisation, and release and deployment practices.
• Ensure all solutions are deployable via CI/CD pipelines, observable and supportable in production.
• Drive improvements in delivery predictability, quality, and speed.
   

Non-Functional Requirements & Quality
 

• Define and own non-functional requirements, including performance and scalability, resilience and availability, security and auditability, and cost efficiency within Azure.
• Validate that delivered solutions meet both functional and non-functional expectations before release.
   

Stakeholder & Domain Translation
 

• Work with SMEs, operations, and compliance teams to understand business requirements.
• Translate complex regulatory and process requirements into clear, implementable delivery items.
• Ensure regulatory and audit obligations are embedded within solutions.
   

Performance & Continuous Improvement
 

• Define and monitor key delivery metrics, including lead time for change, deployment frequency, and defect rates and rework.
• Drive continuous improvement across engineering and delivery practices.
   

Team Leader
 

• Act as line manager for a team with software development skills. Allocate work, support delivery planning, and help ensure team objectives and deadlines are met. Drive continuous improvement across engineering and delivery practices.
• Provide coaching, mentoring, and development support to team members. Conduct regular one-to-ones, performance reviews, and development planning for direct reports
   

Essential

Your Profile:
 

• Experience working with technically complex, data-driven or analytical software products, with the ability to understand complex calculation and modelling requirements and translate them into clear, deliverable software capabilities.
• Candidates should be comfortable working with concepts such as statistical and mathematical models, curves, assumptions, calculation methodologies and analytical services, and be able to engage effectively with both subject matter experts and software development teams.
• Strong experience working with Microsoft Azure-based solutions, including practical understanding of cloud-native and serverless architectures.
   

Desirable
 

• Experience working with actuarial and/or investment consulting teams within pensions or financial services, particularly in the development of actuarial, statistical or analytical tools and services.
• Familiarity with actuarial modelling concepts, curve construction, calculation engines and the use of data and assumptions within analytical models would be advantageous.