Product Owner

Job Type:

Build a brilliant future with Hiscox
 

Hiscox is an international specialist insurer, headquartered in Bermuda and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Our purpose is simple: we give people and businesses the confidence to realise their ambitions. Guided by our values of Courage, Human, Ownership, Integrity and Connected, we continually invest in technology and innovation to improve experiences for colleagues and customers alike.

The End User Experience (EUX) function exists to ensure that every colleague across Hiscox can work productively, effectively and securely through technology. As EUX continues to evolve towards a more product-led operating model, the App Services capability will help own, govern and continually improve key technology platforms that support colleague experience, operational efficiency and service management outcomes.

The App Services portfolio includes ServiceNow as the primary IT Service Management platform, with opportunities to shape adjacent colleague experience products such as Nexthink, HappySignals and future experience management capabilities where business need and product maturity align.

Reporting to the Product Manager - EUX, the Product Owner - IT Service Management Tooling will be responsible for shaping, prioritising and driving continual improvement across Hiscox’s ServiceNow platform and related App Services products. The role owns the day-to-day product backlog and supports the translation of strategic direction, stakeholder need and operational insight into clear, valuable and deliverable outcomes.

The successful candidate will work from roadmap definition and intake through to refinement, prioritisation, sizing, allocation of work and delivery follow-through. They will partner closely with the Configuration Analyst, Service Management teams, technical colleagues, suppliers and business stakeholders to improve adoption, strengthen governance and ensure ServiceNow continues to enable high-quality service management outcomes across Hiscox.

This role will suit someone who combines strong Product Ownership discipline with practical ITSM experience, excellent stakeholder management and a continuous improvement mindset. ServiceNow and Employee Center experience is highly preferred, while experience with any enterprise ITSM tooling is essential.

Role focus

• Own and manage the ServiceNow product backlog, ensuring the right work is refined, prioritised and ready for delivery.

• Turn roadmap themes, stakeholder demand and operational insight into clear user stories, acceptance criteria and delivery outcomes.

• Work closely with Configuration, Service Management and App Services colleagues to improve adoption, usability, governance and business value.

• Potentially extend Product Ownership across adjacent App Services products, including Nexthink and HappySignals.

Product Strategy, Roadmap and Value Management

·    Own and maintain the product roadmap for IT Service Management tooling, with ServiceNow as the primary platform focus.

·    Translate strategic priorities, service management needs and user feedback into a prioritised backlog of enhancements, fixes and continuous improvement activity.

·    Define and communicate product objectives, outcomes and success measures, ensuring the backlog remains aligned to business value, risk, user experience and operational need.

·    Assess new demand through structured intake, clarifying business outcomes, feasibility, dependencies, sizing assumptions and prioritisation options.

·    Support a value-focused approach to technology delivery, balancing colleague experience, control, resilience, adoption and efficient use of delivery capacity.

Backlog Ownership, Refinement and Delivery

·    Own the ServiceNow backlog and ensure work is appropriately captured, refined, prioritised, estimated and ready for delivery.

·    Create and refine user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules and delivery requirements in partnership with analysts, engineers, configuration specialists and stakeholders.

·    Lead refinement, prioritisation and sizing conversations, ensuring delivery teams have the required context to allocate and progress work effectively.

·    Coordinate allocation of prioritised work across delivery resources, making trade-offs transparent and escalating decisions where required.

·    Track delivery progress, manage dependencies and support testing, release planning, change communications and adoption activity.

ServiceNow Platform Ownership and Adoption

·    Drive continual improvement of ServiceNow capabilities across ITSM processes, service catalogue, request fulfilment, workflow, knowledge, reporting and Employee Center where applicable.

·    Partner with the Configuration Analyst to ensure platform changes consider CMDB, Configuration Item data, dependency mapping, reporting, governance and data quality impacts.

·    Work with Service Owners, Service Management teams and support functions to improve adoption, usability and consistency of ServiceNow processes and experiences.

·    Use platform data, stakeholder feedback and operational insight to identify recurring pain points, improvement opportunities and adoption barriers.

·    Promote simple, supportable and well-governed platform configuration that improves colleague experience and reduces operational effort.

Stakeholder Engagement and Product Leadership

·    Act as a trusted partner for stakeholders across Service Management, EUX, App Services, technology teams, suppliers and business functions.

·    Facilitate clear decision-making around priorities, scope, trade-offs, dependencies and expected outcomes.

·    Communicate product direction, delivery status, risks and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

·    Lead product conversations across internal teams and third-party suppliers, ensuring delivery activity remains focused on agreed business outcomes.

·    Provide demonstrations, release updates and knowledge-sharing sessions to support successful adoption of new or changed capability.

Governance, Risk and Operational Excellence

·    Ensure ServiceNow and related tooling changes are delivered in line with agreed governance, change, testing, security and compliance expectations.

·    Maintain clear product documentation, decision records, requirements, acceptance criteria and release notes where required.

·    Support audit, assurance and reporting activity by ensuring product decisions, platform changes and backlog priorities are traceable and well documented.

·    Work with support and technical teams to investigate recurring issues, prioritise sustainable fixes and reduce operational risk.

·    Contribute to the maturity of App Services as a product-led capability, including improved intake, prioritisation, roadmap management and delivery governance.

Adjacent App Services Products

·    Where required, take Product Ownership responsibility for adjacent App Services products such as Nexthink and HappySignals.

·    Identify opportunities to use Digital Employee Experience, observability and colleague feedback tooling to improve service quality and colleague experience.

·    Work with EUX and operational teams to connect insights from ServiceNow, Nexthink, HappySignals and other platforms into meaningful improvement activity.

·    Ensure adjacent products have clear ownership, appropriate stakeholder engagement, defined value outcomes and a manageable delivery backlog.

Essential Experience

·    Proven Product Ownership experience in a technology, service management, enterprise systems or platform delivery environment.

·    Experience owning or managing a product backlog, including intake, refinement, prioritisation, sizing, delivery planning and acceptance criteria.

·    Experience working with IT Service Management tooling in a medium or large enterprise environment. ServiceNow experience is highly preferred, but experience with any ITSM platform is essential.

·    Practical understanding of ITSM processes such as Incident, Request, Change, Problem, Knowledge, Service Catalogue or related service management capabilities.

·    Experience working with technical delivery teams, analysts, platform administrators, suppliers and business stakeholders to deliver improvements.

·    Experience using Agile principles and delivery practices, including backlog refinement, sprint planning, delivery tracking, testing and release activity.

·    Experience translating business requirements, user needs and operational pain points into clear, deliverable product outcomes.

·    Experience managing competing stakeholder priorities and making transparent trade-offs based on value, risk, effort and strategic alignment.

Essential Skills and Attributes

·    Strong analytical and problem-solving capability, with the ability to understand complex processes and turn ambiguity into actionable delivery work.

·    Strong communication, facilitation and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to influence across technical and non-technical audiences.

·    Clear understanding of Product Ownership responsibilities, including backlog health, value management, story quality and outcome-focused delivery.

·    Ability to prioritise effectively in a fast-paced environment with evolving business needs and finite delivery capacity.

·    Strong attention to detail and commitment to clear documentation, governance and traceability.

·    Commercial and pragmatic mindset, able to balance user experience, delivery effort, risk, controls and long-term platform sustainability.

·    Confidence to lead product conversations, challenge constructively and make recommendations based on evidence and business value.

·    Collaborative, self-motivated and accountable, with a practical can-do approach to improving service outcomes.

Desirable Experience

·    Hands-on experience with ServiceNow, particularly ITSM, Employee Center, Service Catalogue, Knowledge, workflows, reporting or platform administration.

·    ServiceNow certifications or module-specific ServiceNow training.

·    Experience with Digital Employee Experience or observability platforms such as Nexthink.

·    Experience with employee feedback or experience measurement platforms such as HappySignals.

·    Experience working with CMDB, Configuration Management, discovery, dependency mapping or Configuration Item data.

·    Experience with reporting, data analysis, dashboards, Power BI or operational metrics.

·    ITIL v3 or ITIL 4 certification, or equivalent practical experience applying service management principles.

·    Experience working in financial services or another regulated environment.

Within the first 12 months, the successful candidate will:

·    Develop a strong understanding of the Hiscox ServiceNow platform, ITSM processes, stakeholder landscape and App Services operating model.

·    Establish a clear and trusted intake, refinement and prioritisation rhythm for ServiceNow and related product demand.

·    Create and maintain a transparent product roadmap and healthy backlog that balances strategic improvement, operational need, adoption and risk reduction.

·    Build strong relationships with the Product Manager, Configuration Analyst, Service Management teams, technical teams, suppliers and key stakeholders.

·    Deliver measurable improvements to ServiceNow usability, adoption, colleague experience, reporting, workflow efficiency or governance.

·    Improve the quality of product artefacts, including user stories, acceptance criteria, release notes, decision records and stakeholder communications.

·    Help mature App Services as a product-led capability by improving ownership, prioritisation, delivery discipline and stakeholder confidence.

·    Build awareness of adjacent App Services products, including Nexthink and HappySignals, and identify where they can support better colleague experience and service outcomes.

At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we are committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success.

Working life does not always have to be in the office, so we support hybrid working to encourage a healthy work-life balance. This hybrid working model is set by the team rather than the business to enable structure, sociability, independence and flexibility.

Our benefits package includes a bonus, contributory pension, annual leave, Hiscox days, private medical cover and a wide range of additional benefits.

Work with amazing people and be part of a unique culture